Bellatrix
by wrenegade
Summary: Edward left Bella in the woods, but Victoria appeared and absconded with a severely injured Bella to parts unknown. Just before Victoria could suck the last drop that would end Bella's life, something interfered. Bella awoke with no memory. The only clue she had to her past was her first name written on the inside of her boots. Starts in NM but then AU. ExB HEA MultiplePOVs
1. Chapter 1

I'm re-posting this fic after having removed it during my hiatus. The rest of the chapters I've written thus far will be posted shortly. If you followed my FSOG stories, they're all on wordpress. Simply go to wrenegadewriter dot wordpress dot com and you'll find them. At this time, i don't have plans to post my FSOG fics back on here.

Also, for those of you that are reading, "She is Entirely Other," I used the same idea for that story as for this one, only it's tweaked a bit. So you may notice some similarities. It all came from a novel that I wrote where I got inspiration from the TV Show Kyle XY, so if you watched that show, you'll see some familiar things, as well.

The usual disclaimer applies. SM is the stage, I am merely a player

Enjoy!

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Chapter 1

Edward PoV

The birthday party was the last straw. For hours I went through the what-ifs. What if Alice had listened when Bella was adamant about not wanting a party? What if she had opened a different gift instead of the one from my parents? Would she have still cut herself? What if I had simply stepped in front of her instead of pushing her backwards and into a pile of glass plates? Why were there glass plates anyway? It wasn't like we needed more than one plate. How could I have done anything differently to prevent this outcome?

There was nothing, because it was inevitable. Whether it happened when it did or in a few weeks or months, it was bound to happen. I always knew there would be something that was unforgettable, something that would drive a wedge between us and send us beyond the point of no return. At first, I thought it would be Bella's insistence on becoming immortal and my refusal to let it happen. Or we would get to an age where she looked more like my mother than my wife and she'd leave me. But no, it was a simple paper-cut that ended my life.

After luring her to the woods and telling her the worst lies I could think of, I kissed her forehead, bade her farewell and ran away from her as fast as my inhuman legs would carry me. Each step was utter agony, but I knew I was making the right decision. After a few moments, I could hear her calling out to me, demanding that I return. Even if she saw through my lies, I couldn't go back. I'd promised her I'd never see her again, and I'd be damned all over again if I didn't keep that promise.

The family had already moved on, most of us splitting apart. Emmett and Rosalie decided to visit the Denali clan in Alaska. Alice and Jasper went off to Australia to spend some time hunting in the Outback. Apparently kangaroos are fun, according to Jasper. I wasn't sure I would ever know what "fun" felt like ever again. Carlisle and Esme wanted to stay behind and wait for me. But as I had no idea of what my destination would be, I told them to go on ahead without me. They went to Ithaca where Esme would be teaching interior design and Carlisle both a practicing doctor and a professor at the university.

Everyone had their distractions. All I had was several months of wonderful memories with the girl that made my world turn. I mourned her loss as if she were truly dead. Though I knew that when the day came that she did die, I would not be far behind her. Sure it's macabre, and makes me sound melodramatic, but I knew the moment that I looked into her chocolate depths, that there would never be another for me. But the fates decided they hated me as they had to curse me with being a vampire, when all I wanted was to be human for her. Give her the life she deserved.

The birthday party merely solidified the idea that I had no business being part of her life. She was simply human though, and as wonderful as it was, it was a detriment to our relationship. Had she somehow already been a vampire when we met, I wouldn't have thought twice about claiming her as my mate. But the fates had left her human and left me with such morality that I couldn't fathom changing her, even though she told me many times that she wanted me forever. I just couldn't believe that she'd choose this life over a real one. One where she could grow old, have children, grand children, living a full loving life with the species she is supposed to be. I was holding her back and it had to end.

I reached a small broken down cabin on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon when I heard my cell phone go off. I glanced at it, seeing Alice's name. She was probably just calling to tell me she'd arrived safely in Australia and that Jasper hadn't eaten any of the passengers on the plane. He hadn't done that in decades, but given his recent lapse in control, I wouldn't have been surprised if he did. Not that I could blame Jasper for what happened. He was feeling not only his own thirst, but everyone else's too, including mine. And we all knew what Bella's blood did to me.

I ignored the call, and wandered inside the cabin. It was in bad need of repairs. Hell, it should probably just have been torn down and built anew. But it would suffice as a perfect hovel to mourn in. I lay down in the center of the room, closing my eyes and let the memory of each day since I met Bella pass through my mind. With my perfect recall, I'd be able to remember every moment for the rest of my existence, and I was determined to never live a day without seeing her face in my mind.

The next day, my phone rang again, and again, and again. Usually Alice stops calling after the fourth attempt, but she was relentless. Seventeen missed calls later, I decided it might actually be something that concerned me, so I answered it. "Seventeen? Seriously Edward?! Were you going for a record or something?" Alice asked as I answered.

"What do you want Alice?" I replied, ignoring her antics.

"It's Bella. She's—"

"Dammit Alice!" I cut her off. "I told you not to look! Why are you already torturing me with this?"

"I didn't look, Edward. It just happened. You know I can't always control what I see. Bella's in danger, Edward. When you—"

"Well her dangers are her own to face now," I replied, interrupting her again. I didn't want to hear about any of this. All it would do is make me want to run back to her arms, and I couldn't have that. "Removing myself from her presence means that whatever befalls her is not due to me or my kind."

"Oh for God's sake, would you let me finish? It's Victoria!" I froze. "Bella went chasing after your stupid ass, and fell. She rolled down a hill for a long time before landing at the bottom, broken arm, legs, ribs and a lot of cuts and bruises. Victoria found her and ran away with her. They're in South America, Edward! Victoria is going to kill her. A mate for a mate, she'll tell Bella."

I heard Alice's words, but I wasn't listening. The moment she said Victoria was behind it, I lost all rational thought. It took me a moment to analyze Alice's words into phrases that made sense. Bella was hurt, she was with that crazy redhead, and they were in South America.

I ended the call and began running. Alice told me they were somewhere in the Amazon, near an old well, but that was all the more she could give me. I ran and ran and ran. Once I came upon the ocean I dove deep, swimming until I reached the coast of Peru. I thanked Alice silently for ensuring I purchased a waterproof case for my phone, and dialed her number. "I can't see anything Edward, I don't know what that means," she said as she answered. "I don't think Bella's dead; it doesn't feel like that, it feels like something is blocking me from seeing her. Please, Edward, you have to find her! Victoria was in Cuzco briefly a couple hours ago. Maybe you can pick up her scent there."

I hung up without responding and made my way to Cuzco. Sure enough, I found Victoria's scent and a human victim inside a church. And if I had to venture a guess, I'd say she had sex with this man before she drained him. She truly was deranged. Who sleeps with a priest inside the church, tears off their unmentionables and then kills them?

I followed her scent, rather easily through the city and into the jungle. The stronger her scent became, the closer I knew I was. I reached the clearing that Alice had described, but neither Victoria nor Bella where anywhere in site. "I'm too late," I cried as I fell to my knees.

Bella PoV

I could tell something was off with Edward ever since my birthday party. I tried to play it off as nothing, because to me it truly was. When I entered into their life, I always prepared for the possibility that my being a clumsy human was going to come back and bite me in the arse. Nearly literally, though I doubted Jasper would have actually bit my backside.

Edward was in my driveway when I arrived home, but his car was in Charlie's spot, which meant he wasn't staying. This bothered me to no end. Then he lured me away from the house and into the woods. He knew how clumsy I was, any tree-root or bump in the ground could easily spell death for me. What was he doing?

Then the words that negated all the others and the ones that tore out my heart. "Goodbye Bella," he whispered, and as I closed my eyes, I felt the wind of his departure across my face. Stunned and wounded by his words, I stood there, frozen for an immeasurable moment.

Wait just a minute. Doesn't want me? Doesn't _want_ me? _Doesn't_ want me? Doesn't _love_ me? Bull shit. I'm calling shenanigans. "Edward!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "Get your sparkly ass back here! I have words for you. Edward!" I searched around for any sign of him, but if he was there, he was very good at concealing himself. "Damn stubborn glorious vampire," I muttered to myself as I took off in search of him.

I chased in the direction he turned after kissing my forehead. There was no trace of him. Not that I was an expert tracker or anything, but there was not a broken branch or a torn leaf to be found.

He was gone. He left me in the woods to rot under a lie that he didn't want me anymore. He may have been chaste all the time with his affection, but I could see the desire in his eyes, the carnal beast that was waiting to be unleashed to ravish my body in ways I'd never even dreamt about. He'd told me he loved me countless times. Hell, he practically worshipped the ground I walked on. For some unfathomable reason, he'd picked me.

I ran and ran after him, hoping to catch up, but knowing that I didn't stand a chance. He was too fast, even for a vampire, he was too fast. I was sure he had to be miles away by now. I kept looking up to see if maybe he didn't leave, but was just watching me from high up in the trees. I never saw anything, though. Before long, my clumsiness got the best of me and I tripped over a root, and fell. And I couldn't just fall and hit the ground; no, that was too simple. I had to fall forward down a hill and presumably into a ravine. I felt my body tumbling and tumbling, not bothering to look for anything to stop my fall. I was numb; I didn't care about anything but finding Edward.

He was lost to me, but I had to keep searching. I refused to believe that he stopped loving me. How could he tell me every day for the past several months, multiple times a day, only for him to lie now? I was so stunned by his words when he said them that I couldn't organize a response. But I know he lied. He thought he convinced me, but I knew it was a lie. He was so damned self-righteous and arrogant that he thought I would take him seriously. I knew that once I found him, I'd have Emmett pound him into the ground for me. He'd have a lot of groveling to do before I considered taking him back.

Finally my body hit the bottom of the hill, or rather the bottom of the ravine I tumbled into. Leave it to me to find the most dangerous area to trip and fall. I was sure that I was cut up all over. I got a tiny whiff of the blood and immediately starting breathing through my mouth to hold off the nausea. Assessing my battered body, I deduced that I had cracked or broken some ribs, sprained an ankle, and broken an arm and a leg. Great, that means a body cast. Oddly enough, I couldn't feel any pain though. I lay there, for what seemed like hours, just in silence. The only sounds were my racing heart and my breaths.

"Oh this is just too easy," I heard a ringing soprano voice call out. Her voice was familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. "Here, I thought you were something special to him, and yet he threw you away like yesterday's gossip. Well, still, I'll get my vengeance on him and you." A flash of red hair flew before my eyes and I knew who had found me.

Victoria, I realized. I should have known she'd be upset about the Cullens killing James. I had no idea she'd come for _me_ though. I was practically paralyzed with all my broken bones, and running away would have been futile anyway. So I just laid there and stared into the darkness where her voice came from. In the next instance, there she was, hovering inches from my face, her fiery hair falling into my eyes. And then I was in her arms, being carried. She wasn't as careful with me as Edward always was, branches cutting into my face, and the ride was a lot bumpier than I was used to. The pain of my injuries began to make itself known as I was jostled in her arms.

I kept my mouth shut, screaming internally at the excruciating pain that each stride caused. My ribs rattled against each other, my leg throbbed, and I could feel the blood from my cuts seeping through my clothes. How she was able to resist me, I wasn't sure. When I chanced a look at her, I noticed she wasn't breathing. She must have wanted to carry me somewhere far away, before she ate me. The thought should have terrified me; I should have been begging for my life. But I couldn't find the strength, or the drive to do so.

After what could have been days, she threw me to the ground. I cried out in pain, unintentionally. As my breathing settled, and the pain became bearable, I opened my eyes to look around. Victoria was nowhere in site, but I knew better than to think she was far away. Probably collecting torture devices to use on me before she drained me of blood and left me for the vultures. The sun above was hot on my skin, so I knew we weren't anywhere near Forks.

Looking around me, the vegetation seemed tropical. I was in a clearing that was surrounded by a dense forest. I saw a shadow move across the ground, and looking up, I saw a tropical parrot fly over head, its wings a rainbow of colors. In any other moment, I might be excited to be in what I assumed was South America, but I didn't have it in me to feel anything but agony and defeat.

All too soon, Victoria returned. Empty handed, I noticed. "I had plans to draw this out, Bella. I wanted to take my time killing you, but as it turns out, you did a pretty good job of torturing yourself when you tripped over that root. And I'm sure all the rocky terrain of our trek here was nice and painful for you." Oh great, she'd seen that. Of course my last act on this earth would be one of utter clumsiness. "And all the fresh cuts, Bella, I just can't help myself."

Her mouth was on me, then, licking away at the cuts on my forehead and then along my arms. I noticed that as she licked them, they healed, leaving behind a tiny silver scar. Not unlike the one on my hand from her so-called mate. _Venom heals. Huh_, I thought. A little late for me to have any real use for that knowledge.

"Here's what's going to happen, Bella," Victoria began as she finished licking my wounds, which was really weird by the way. "I'm going to drain every drop of your blood until you're completely dry. Then I'm going to throw you in that pit over there," she indicated, pointing with her finger. I looked and saw what probably used to be an old well, but time and the elements had eroded it away into just a deep hole. "And set you on fire," she finished, pointing to the cans of gasoline and kerosene that sat nearby. "Your precious Edward burned my mate to ashes, so I'm going to do the same to his."

With that, her mouth was at my wrist, just over where James had bitten me, she sniffed the flesh, rubbed the scar against her cheek in an oddly affectionate manner and then bit in. The pain of my broken bones was gone; in its place was fire. All consuming fire as she drank my life's essence. I watched as her eyes went from a dark burgundy to a vivid crimson with each pull she swallowed. And I swear, before everything went black, She vanished. Was yanked away by something else. My hand dropped to my side, my head lolled, and the next thing I knew was nothing at all.

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What do you think happened to Victoria?


	2. Chapter 2

Alright boys and girls, here's chapter 2... Bella is found! Or is she?

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Chapter 2

Edward PoV

Bella wasn't anywhere; the ground was stained with her blood, but she was nowhere to be found. Next to a particularly large concentration of Bella's life essence, was a patch of scorched ground, some of it still smoldering. I realized this is where Victoria's scent ended. She met her end right here on this tiny patch of grass. What happened? Did Bella happen to have a lighter on her and she used it to kill Victoria at the last possible moment? As much as I knew how brave Bella was, I didn't think she'd have the forethought to just carry one around, in case a crazy vampire decided to make a meal of her. Though she definitely should have.

No, something else had to have happened. I fished my phone out of my pocket and it immediately started ringing, before I could utter the words, Alice started howling at me. "She's not dead!" she yelled. "Well, Victoria is, but Bella isn't. I can't see her clearly, there is something blocking me, but I can tell you she is alive, Edward! I see her with a woman with light brown skin and ice blue eyes. I don't recognize her, and I have no clue how she's involved, but I can tell you Bella is with her, and she's safe."

"Thank you Alice," I whispered before ending the call. Bella was safe. That was all that mattered to me in the world, that she was safe. I sat down on the grass next to where Bella had been, and I sobbed. I mourned the loss of my love, not her death, but at losing her from my life. As long as she was safe, I knew I could walk the earth another day.

Being without her was more painful than I anticipated. I knew without a doubt that she was truly my mate. The being that was created to be with me. I knew then why I had to be a vampire. I never would have met her if I'd stayed human. Even if the flu hadn't killed me, I would have been long dead before she was born, or a very old man at the most. We never would have had our happily ever after if fate didn't intervene and make me a vampire.

I would find Bella. One way or another, she and I would be together again. I'd convince her that I was lying and prove my love to her. Even if it meant that I had to spend the rest of forever doing it.

? PoV

I woke up and looked around me. I was in a room, on a bed, completely alone. As I sat up, I realized I did so much faster than seemed normal, though I couldn't figure out why that was. Upon my gasp at my movement, the door opened. I jumped to my feet and threw myself into the corner, landing in a defensive crouch. What? Why am I doing this? I looked across the room and saw a girl standing there. Well, a woman. She looked to be about twenty-five years old. She had long black hair that hung to her waist, a warm honey complexion and piercing ice blue eyes with silver flecks floating around in them.

It didn't occur to me that I shouldn't be able to discern all that from across the room. She smiled at me shyly as she placed her hands up in surrender. I straightened my stance and peered at her from my corner. "Hola," she greeted. Spanish. Okay. I understood that much. Did that mean that I spoke Spanish? _No, I'm thinking in English_, I thought to myself. "Me llamo Mireya. ¿Cómo te llamas?"

"Um, me llamo… um…" I had to think. "No sé," I said after a long pause. I knew my accent was abysmal, she'd know right away that I wasn't a native speaker.

"Oh, you speak English; I wasn't sure if I should speak in Spanish or Portuguese but, I never considered English. You can just call me Reya. You said you don't know your name?" she asked, concern coloring her features, her eyes darkening slightly. Should that be odd?

"No, I don't. I am trying to think of anything that I know, but it's all coming up a blank. Where are we? I don't recognize anything."

"We're in Argentina now, though I found you near the border of Peru and Brazil. That's why I wasn't sure if Spanish or Portuguese would be your language. Luckily, I speak both, so it wouldn't have been an issue, and as you can see, I speak English too." The woman was rambling and speaking very fast, though I had no problem keeping up. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling. Are you hungry? Thirsty?" she asked.

"Um, I could eat, I guess," I replied. She turned back to the door and disappeared for a moment, returning with a tray of food and a few different beverages.

"I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I got a bit of everything," she said. I flinched. Something about those words reminded me of something, but I couldn't quite recall. "Here, you eat and I'll see if I can figure out what your name is, okay?" When I gave her a quizzical expression, she explained. "I didn't search you or anything while you were unconscious, I just couldn't. I had to wait until you were awake and alert before I did anything." I nodded in understanding.

She asked me to check my pockets for an ID or anything that might have my name on it. My pockets were empty, I glanced over my body and noticed that my clothes were torn, dirtied and ripped as if I'd rolled around in a forest or something. Shouldn't I have cuts all over me? During my self-examination, Reya leaned down and took off my shoes. I looked at her as she examined the boots, which appeared to be ordinary. She pulled back the tongue and gave me a crooked smile. I flinched again. Her smile seemed so familiar, but again, I couldn't figure out why.

"Looks like your name is Bella. Does that sound right?" she asked.

"Bella," I replied. "It sounds like it fits, but I don't know if that's for sure my name. Is there a last name written there?" She shook her head, informing me that the first name was the only thing listed.

"Based on your dialect and pattern of speech, I'm guessing you're from the states. You don't have much of an accent so that rules out the Midwest, the Northeast and the South as your place of origin." I considered her words, but nothing sounded familiar.

"You said we're in Argentina. How did I get down here without a passport?" I asked. She grimaced, telling me that she knew how I got here, but didn't want to tell me. "Look, Reya, you seem nice and all, but I don't know you from Eve. Hell, I don't even know my own name, and I need to start figuring some stuff out, and you had better tell me the truth."

"I think it's best if I start at the beginning. It won't make sense at first, but, I promise, you'll understand what happened. At least as much as you can understand, while you're missing your memories. They'll come back in time, I hope." I nodded and she gestured for us to sit on the bed. I sat down warily, worried for some reason, but I knew she wouldn't hurt me. I'd gotten over the initial shock of her entering the room and now I trusted her completely. Was that weird?

"I had been tracking this crazed vampire for weeks," she began.

"Wait, vampire? There are vampires?" I asked, my mouth dropping open, disbelief all over my face.

"Look at your right wrist," she told me. I looked down and sure enough there were two crescent shaped scars marring my creamy skin. They looked like the exact shape of a pair of jaws full of sharp teeth, ripping through my flesh. "Seeing as you don't remember your own name, I'm not surprised that you don't remember about the existence of vampires." Showing me her own scars, one on her neck and another on her wrist, that was nearly identical to mine. She continued. "That crazy red head was elusive and giving me quite a run for my money. I enjoyed that though. It's so boring when they just give up. I caught her scent on her way back down here, and I gave chase. I didn't realize right away that she had you with her. She killed a priest in Cuzco and then I followed her here. I was almost too late; she'd drained so much of your blood." She flinched at the memory. "She was sufficiently distracted with you, so she never saw me coming. I swiftly tore off her head, set her on fire, and then set about saving you."

I stared at her in shock for a long moment. There was no hint of deception in her voice, and somehow I knew that it would be obvious to me if she was lying. I simply had to accept that not only did vampires exist, but one of them tried to kill me.

"You had lost so much blood, and I knew there was no way I could get you to a hospital in time before you died. You literally had seconds to live. So instead I cut open my own arm and transfused my blood into your body," she told me, cringing at the end of her statement. "Trust me, if there had been any other way to save you, I would have taken it. Apart from making you into a vampire, of course. But even then, you were far too weak to even make it through that transition. Hell, you barely made it through this one.

"Transition?" I asked.

"Well, I wasn't entirely sure it would happen this way. I'd hoped that my blood would convert to yours and you'd be fully human again. But the opposite happened. Your blood and DNA converted to be more like mine. And you went through a very painful transformation for the past week, while every cell in your body changed in structure, adapting to the new DNA running through it."

Something about her description seemed familiar to me, but like so many other things she'd said, I couldn't put my finger on it. "It's not altogether all that different from becoming a vampire, but at the end you still have a pulse, can eat food, sleep, and so forth. We're still human, though we have some other skills that qualify us as _more_."

"More?" I asked. "More than what?"

"More than human," she replied. "I could go through the whole story verbally, but it'll be much faster if I show you what I am."

"_Show_ me? How?" And without a word of warning, her hand was on my forehead, and I could no longer see what was in front of me. Wait, yes I could. It was more like I had a dual screen of some kind. I could see her sitting there next to me, and the entire room around me, but superimposed over it was another scene. It appeared as though I was looking at the world through her eyes. I saw her wake up in the woods, completely naked and covered in strange goo.

She stood up and wandered through the forest, noting all the animals and plants that she saw. Somehow, I could hear what she was thinking, and she wasn't thinking much other than finding something that looked like herself. She searched and searched for hours, fatigue, thirst and hunger overcoming her, but she had no idea what any of that meant. She found water and drank it, realizing her body required something. Then she came upon a mountain lion. Or rather, the lion came upon her. They fought; it tore into her flesh, ripping at the muscle, trying to kill her, presumably for its next meal. I didn't think mountain lions cared for human meat, but if it was hungry enough, anything would do.

Reya fought more fiercely than a human should be able, and eventually she was able to get her hands around the lion's neck and break it, dropping its now dead carcass to the ground. As she turned, she saw a group of humans standing at the other side of the clearing, staring at her in complete shock and awe. She jumped to a new scene where she was being cared for by this family. They took her in as one of their own, the family's mother taking her in as another daughter.

Eventually she learned that she was far from human though outwardly, she looked like one. A science lab known as Genexis used donated embryos to experiment on, in an attempt to create super humans. They succeeded with her and her brother Lukas. Reya showed me that when she and Lukas escaped the Genexis compound, they were hunted. For years, Genexis came after them with any kind of weapon they could find. It turned out Reya and Lukas had some kind of defense built into their DNA that any attack on their body would heal almost instantly, and then their DNA would evolve to become immune to the attack.

She went through the list, and indicated that she now was immune to flame and could create flames in her hands by concentrating her body heat, she could breathe under water after they tried to drown her, her body is bulletproof and now vampire proof after she was bitten. The list went on, and basically she told me she's a walking talking tank of a woman who pretty definitely cannot be killed by anything.

The story went on with how she and Lukas took down the company that created them, took over as CEOs and changed the whole mission of the company. She took her hand away from my forehead and the images were gone instantly. "It wasn't right that they were playing with human life. I don't believe in any god, but I don't believe they had the right to play like one. Especially with the intentions they all had. They cared little about me or my brother, even less about the hundreds of failed experiments that came before and after us. Humanity should evolve on its own, not be forced into these changes by the hands of a bunch of mad scientists."

"I don't mean to interrupt, but this sounds more like a comic book plot than real life," I said. Funny, I knew about comic books, but couldn't figure out my own name.

"I know it sounds outrageous, but it's the truth. All of it. I was created by vampires to kill vampires. And now… you're like me." I froze. "Your skin is impenetrable, even to vampire teeth; you cannot be burned, drowned, electrocuted, shot, nor poisoned. Every obstacle that I ever overcame is imprinted in my DNA. And now it's in yours, too."

"Are you saying I'm a superhero?" I asked. Everything she was saying sounded so unbelievable.

"If that's how you choose to live, yes. We're immortal, Bella. We have nothing but time ahead of us. If you want to go to college, you can. If you want to try and find out about your past, you are more than able to do so, if you want to save lives Wonder Woman style, by all means. But, like superheroes and ninjas, you must do so with a secret identity, or without ever being seen. If you're discovered, every scientific research company on the planet is going to want to run experiments on you. And I know from experience, you don't want that. Not ever."

"I feel like you're telling me all this far too fast, but it doesn't seem like it at the same time. It's very confusing," I admitted.

"I know what you mean, Bella. Your brain is now able to process information much faster than before. What would take a human sometimes weeks to process mentally and emotionally, we can in mere minutes or seconds. Our brains work like computers. In time, you'll learn from experience what all we're capable of. It's really quite amazing," she replied.

Amazing. Right. I wasn't sure about her choice of words, but she seemed to truly enjoy her life as a whatever-she-was. She kept in touch with her human adoptive family, though her siblings now were in their thirties, while she didn't look a day over eighteen. Apparently, I'd stay whatever age I was forever too. She said I looked to be about eighteen give or take. I could either enroll in a high school or start college. Reya had ways to acquire IDs and documentation.

"It's something you have to figure out when you need to get a new ID every few years. We can pass for about twenty-five at the oldest, and sixteen at the youngest. Much beyond that and people start to ask questions."

"Can't I just go back to my family? I mean I probably have a family. I probably have friends. What time of year is it? September? I'm probably missing school or something," I told her. "If I had any family at all, I'm sure they're worried sick about me, searching for me. I should find them, right?"

"That's entirely up to you, Bella. But let me just give you some tips. You are immortal, and you do look different than you did a few days ago. People will recognize you, I'm sure, but they'll notice the changes, too. And in a few years, you'd have to leave everyone you know behind. They can never know about what you are now. My family is the exception because they were there when I found everything out. And they almost paid for that with their lives on more than one occasion. I doubt you want anything like that to happen to your family." I shook my head vigorously. "I didn't think so. So, then you have to decide if you want to let go of what you don't remember now, or go back to them, possibly regain your memories or create new ones, and then go through the heartache of leaving them when your age surpasses your appearance and never look back."

"Well, when you put it like that. And then they'd have to deal with me going missing all over again, right?" I asked. She gave me one stiff nod. "In that case, I'd like to start over. If you do see any information about me, please keep it from me. I'll try not to watch the news or read the papers, though I don't feel like I did much of that to begin with. At any rate, I don't want to be tempted to go looking for people that I can't keep. If anything, keep me away from whatever region they're in. Could you do that, please?" I asked.

"Yes, of course, Bella," she replied. "Do you want to be called Bella anymore? Or would you like a different name?" she asked.

"Well, I'm assuming that if my name is Bella that it's short for Isabella, most likely. But if my family is going to look for me, I don't want them to find me because of that. How about we keep it as part of my name, but not from Isabella? What are some other names that have Bella as part of them?" I sat there and thought for a moment. "Annabella, Arabella, Bellanova, Bellamy, Bellatrix, Clarabella, Donnabella, Elisabella, Jezabella, Lilibella, Mirabella, Norabella, Sarabella," I recited. It was as if a list of possible names with "Bella" in them populated in my head. I spat them out so fast it was like I couldn't keep them in my head any longer.

"Do you like any of those?" Reya asked. Apparently she'd kept up with my litany just fine. "I like Bellatrix, personally. You could go by Trixie, too."

I smiled. "Trixie? I like that." I thought for a moment. "Okay Bellatrix for my first name, Trixie for short, Christina for a middle name, and what about the last name?"

"You could use mine if you like, Summers," she suggested. I let the name roll over my tongue a few times. Bellatrix Christina Summers. Bellatrix Summers. Trixie Summers. I smiled again and nodded. "Okay, great! I'll get working on those papers then. Want to be eighteen? Twenty-one so you can drink? We can't get drunk by the way, but if we drink a lot really fast we'll get a little bit of a buzz for about three minutes. Or you could be younger so you can enroll in a high school somewhere. I could pose as your older sister who cares for you because are parents are dead or in jail or whatever story we decide to come up with."

She spoke so fast I shouldn't have been able to keep up, but I did. All of her ideas sounded good, but which one would be best for me? Did I complete high school already? I didn't really feel like doing that all over again, even if I didn't remember the first time around. "Wouldn't it be easier to blend into a college?" I asked. "There are a lot more people to blend in with, right?" Reya nodded and suggested a big University such as the one in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It sounded good to me, so off she went to figure out getting us both admitted as freshmen in the upcoming semester. We were already in the current one, so it was unlikely that we could enroll after the term had already begun. Even though it was clear that something horrible had happened to me, and it was likely that whatever family I had was combing the earth for me, I couldn't find it in me to worry. Or to miss them. You can't miss who you don't remember. I felt that starting anew would be a good thing. Maybe my memories would come back some day, maybe not. Either way, the old Bella was dead. The new Bellatrix Summers was here to stay.

* * *

In the past, people asked me if I picked Summers because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The short answer is No. I didn't even know Buffy's last name was Summers when I wrote Starry Eyes (The novel about Reya). When I do get around to publishing it, I'll probably change the last name. As much as I love Joss Whedon and his creations, I don't think it'd be a good idea to have another vampire slayer with the same last name from a totally different series.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Trixie PoV

4 months later

Reya has helped immensely with getting me acclimated to this new life. I lost count of how many t-shirts I ripped when trying to get dressed. That first day was a mess. She left the room to go start on getting forged documents and I decided to take a shower. She'd left some clothes on a chair that she'd gotten while I was going through my transformation. The bathroom was across the hall from my room.

First I tore the door off the hinges when I opened it. Reya heard it and came up the stairs to fix it. She had tools in hand and within a minute the door was fully functioning again. Smiling at me, she took my hand in hers and showed me exactly how much pressure to apply to the handle and how much force to use when opening the door. Six doors later I finally had it. When I got in the shower, I nearly tore the taps out of the wall. Thankfully I didn't but I was fairly certain that the taps became shaped like my hands after a few showers.

My new sister, as we figured to call it, taught me how to brush my hair as, rather than the brush pulling out my hair by the roots, my hair pulled out the bristles in the brush. Nine brushes ended up in the trash before I finally managed to do it without her help. She assured me that she had an endless source of income, so I didn't need to worry about the cost I was racking up in ruining everything in the house.

Eating food was another story all together. After destroying six forks with my now razor sharp and super strong teeth, I reverted to cave person mode and ate with my hands. Reya laughed for about an hour when she saw me using my hand as a ladle for soup. I'd learned that the soup was very hot, but it didn't burn me. I could feel the heat, and it was a bit unpleasant, but not painful. It made for an easier way to eat the soup without crushing the bowl or mangling a spoon.

Luckily though, before too long, I'd gotten the hang of my strength, and could walk about the house without destroying it. Reya helped me gain control of my abilities. That began when I had seen a vase that I wanted to put flowers in. I reached out to grab it, but it moved across the table and into my waiting hand. Only I wasn't ready to catch it, and it shattered against my fingers. I'd made it move too fast, and didn't compensate on the other end to cradle it, instead. Twelve broken vases later, I'd more or less mastered telekinesis. At least with the small stuff. "We'll have to gradually move up to heavier things. You can lift anything with your mind that you can lift with your physical strength," she told me. "The heaviest thing I've lifted is a seven-forty-seven plane full of passengers, cargo, and fuel. So the possibilities are vast." My mind went to a visual of her juggling airplanes, and I shook my head at the impossibility of that. But we could do it now.

The next thing she taught me was molecular manipulation. "We can manipulate the molecules of just about any object, but water is easiest," she said as she led me out to the backyard and used the hose to saturate the ground with water. She stepped into the puddle she created and within seconds she was airborne. She was hovering about twelve inches above the water.

"We can fly?" I asked her, dumbfounded.

"Not exactly," she replied. "We can manipulate the molecules of water in the air and make them react with those that are in our body. Like magnets. I polarize the molecules in my body to be the same as the ones on the ground. I'm instantly repelled and with concentration, I can fly as high as an airplane. Provided I keep lots of water in my system and there's enough in the air. It's easiest during a rainstorm or over the ocean. Now I want you to try it."

I moved over to the puddle and stood there. For a few minutes, the only thing I succeeded in doing was getting my jeans wet. Reya suggested I think of the water as a magnet, and my body as another one. I pictured trying to put the same end of two magnets together and watching as they moved apart. The next thing I knew, my feet were no longer touching the blades of wet grass. I opened my eyes and looked down to see Reya standing on the ground, and me a few feet above it. She beamed at me and congratulated me on my astounding progress. "Wait until the next rainstorm," she told me. "We'll have a lot of fun." She said she liked to live in regions that saw a lot of precipitation or were very humid. The more water in the air, the easier it was to fly.

She also suggested that I alter my appearance. "If they are searching for you, they'll have pictures of you on the news, in papers, on websites, you name it. If someone recognizes you from one of those photos, we'll have a harder time staying hidden." We decided to do the extreme and cut and dye my hair. "Our hair is stronger now, but it can still be cut, if we use titanium scissors." She pulled out a box of what looked like industrial strength tools and explained that this is what she'd have to use to get the job done. "Also, once your hair is cut, it'll never grow again. So be _sure_ that the cut you want is one you can live with for the rest of time. We can dye it whenever, in fact our hair doesn't get damaged by dying, so we could change it every day if you wanted to. But the cut will be permanent unless we make it shorter." I thought for a moment and pulled up a few different hairstyles on the internet. While I knew it'd be a big decision, I decided that the more extreme the change, the better.

After all was said and done, I'd been given a total makeover. Reya watched a video on how to do a certain hair cut and within seconds, she was a salon master. My long mahogany tresses were chopped into a graduated bob, and dyed a burgundy red with blonde highlights. She gave me a pair of fake glasses to wear that had the lenses cut out. Anyone who looked closely enough would see that the frames were empty, but most humans weren't that observant, evidently. I tried a pair of glasses with the frames, but with my new eyesight, I could see all the microscopic scratches and imperfections in the plastic. It was very distracting. Reya explained it would be much the same with contact lenses, so we decided against wearing those unless completely necessary.

Reya took me shopping in Buenos Aires so I could pick out clothes I liked and get a different view than the inside of the house. It was then that I truly realized how our brains worked. Within that first day I had Spanish almost mastered. I picked up every word I heard and catalogued it away. Later, I'd hear the same word and by then would know what it meant, and could use it in conversation. Reya then told me that I could become an expert at anything just by reading a book about it, or watching someone do it once. We made sure to stop at a bookstore on the way home that day. I picked up a Spanish book, another one on Portuguese, a cook book or two, and some more books that were filled with DIY crafts and How-to instructions.

By the time we were ready to relocate to Minnesota, two months later, I'd become fluent in six languages, mastered calculus, knew the entirety of Argentinian history, could work my way around nearly any craft and had a plan to pursue architecture at the University. I'd read a few books on it, but strayed away from the actual how-to books. I wanted to learn in a class room or hands on, at least as much as possible.

The first day of school went relatively easily. I had the attention of quite a few boys in my historic architecture class. There weren't many girls in that class. In fact, aside from the TA, Reya and I were the only ones. She got lots of attention, too. The boys in my Beginners Ojibwe class were fawning at my feet, as well. One of them swore I had to be native. I'd had to move away from his hand before it brushed across what he called native high cheek-bones. Something about that gesture was very familiar, but Reya told me that our skin felt different now, and a human would be freaked out if they ever touched us. So much for having a boyfriend. Ever.

We took the majority of our classes together. Reya chose to take Ancient Greek instead of Ojibwe, as she was going to focus on Ancient Architecture Restoration as her major. All the books I'd brought home on the subject had piqued her interest as well. I was taking Ojibwe as it was one of the most difficult languages to learn, and I wanted the challenge.

Overall, Reya and I got along great. I could tell she felt a great deal of guilt over what happened to me. Even though I would have died had she not interfered and transfused her blood into my body, she felt as though it were all her fault. I told her time and again that it was Victoria's fault. Evidently that was the name of the vampire that tried to kill me. Part of me wished to go back to just that day to see into Victoria's mind and figure out why she was so hell bent on killing me. Reya indicated that Victoria must have carried me all the way from wherever I was from to Peru before she couldn't stand to resist my blood any longer. There had to be a method to her madness, even though Reya told me that the red-headed vampire was the definition of "bat-shit crazy." That began my vampire-slaying training. Reya said that even if I chose not to be a slayer, being trained would be beneficial in case I ever had to defend myself against one. She said my blood must have been very potent as a human, and now that I've gone through this change, it's even more potent. Making me a veritable delicacy to any passing vamp.

"Not all vampires are like her, though," Reya told me. "We'll have to see how you react when you see your first one though." I looked at her quizzically. "They have red eyes," she began. "Super pale skin, inhumanly beautiful features, and razor sharp teeth. We're not altogether different in physical appearance minus our complexion and eye color. Physiologically, vampires are very cold. Like touching stone, and just as hard, too. They don't have heartbeats, so there's no blood pumping through their veins to make their bodies warm. They're venomous, too." I balked at that remark. "It's true. Venom runs through their veins like blood, it's thicker though, and pools in their mouths like saliva when they're thirsty, or smell a particularly delicious human.

"When I saw my first vampire, my slayer instinct kicked in, and I tore him apart limb from limb and set him on fire before I even realized what happened. I remember seeing it happen in my mind as a memory, and that was when I realized what I'd done. Who knows if that vampire was as monstrous as the others I've killed since then. But I'll never know. With all the things we can do, time travel is not one of them." Then she laughed. "My brother Damien used to joke that maybe if I ran really fast backwards that I could time travel that way." I laughed with her at that. It seemed like her brother wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

Coming down from our laughing fit, Reya went on with her vampire 101 lesson. "Some vampires aren't as bad. While I hate that they kill humans, there are some that only prey on those that are deranged psychopaths, like Victoria probably was when she was human. They feed on the murderers, rapists, pedophiles and others of that lot. I have a harder time killing them when they're playing vigilante themselves."

"But what gives us the right to play god like that? What gives them the right?" I asked.

"I don't believe in any god," she replied. "I was created in a lab, Trix. I kind of defy any kind of higher power with my creation alone. If you believe in one, that's your decision, but because I don't, I'm exempt from any of those ideals. Rather than playing god, I think of it as being the judge, jury and executioner all in one. They made a movie about that once. Judge Dredd, I think. And when it comes to vampires, evidently they're damned to hell anyway, so really I'm just speeding up the process."

I couldn't refute her logic, but I hadn't decided if I fully supported it yet. "Well, isn't there some kind of vampire government or monarchy or something? There usually is in the movies."

"Yes, there is," she answered. "They're called the Volturi, and they're based in Italy. I've never met them, but I've met enough vampires to know how they work. They like to work too slowly. They wait until a rogue vampire has killed far too many humans for my liking before they intervene. A newborn vampire, whose sire has left them unattended could massacre an entire town in one night, and the Volturi would come in after the fact, burn the town to the ground, calling it a natural disaster, then kill the newborn, and then move on. I don't like that policy, and since I'm neither human nor vampire, I don't fall under anyone's jurisdiction. I can make up my own rules, which I follow very, very strictly. Also, you and I have an edge that they don't. We can delve into the minds of these creatures and see not only who they've killed, but who they're planning to kill."

Reya mentioned that we're also telepathic. Something about that ability triggered a familiar reaction in me. That happened a lot, but I could never pin point anything to tie the familiar feeling to. Any time I saw a guy with reddish brown hair, my stomach would flip. Even if he wasn't attractive, and more often than not, I didn't find them attractive, but just the hair did something to me. It was quite strange.

Edward PoV

In the months since Bella was taken by Victoria, my life was a living hell. We'd had to return to Forks because Bella had gone missing and we couldn't have her disappearance tied to us. No doubt in my mind that Chief Swan would have assumed that Bella had come with us or that she and I ran away together.

As soon as it was noticed that Bella wasn't at home, Charlie went ape-shit, as Emmett would say. I had gone off in search of Bella, traipsing through South America on a wild goose chase. My absence along with Bella's while everyone else in the family was in Forks only fueled the Chief's idea that she and I had run off together. When I returned alone, Charlie very nearly shot me with a rifle, shouting at me to tell him where Bella was. "I don't know! I've been looking for her, too!" I defended, my arms flying in the air. Charlie demanded I explain myself. "I got here after school on Thursday, like I usually did. Her truck was parked, so I assumed she was inside. I knocked, but didn't hear anything. The door was locked, so I thought maybe she was sitting in the backyard as it wasn't too bad outside. When I got back there, she wasn't there. I found the hidden key and let myself in, and called out to her. She didn't answer. I went upstairs to see if maybe she'd fallen asleep, only her room was empty. It looked like she hadn't been inside the house at all.

"I panicked, Chief. I thought maybe someone grabbed her as she was getting out of her truck. So I got in my car and drove. I searched and searched and searched for her. I finally got my phone charged again and saw that Carlisle and Alice had called me a bunch of times. When they said Bella was officially missing, I lost it, sir. I love Bella. I love her more than anything. I have no idea where she went or why or with whom, but I am as determined to get her back as you are," I promised him. I'd have to play that role, search for her, but even if I stumbled upon her scent, I couldn't bring myself to follow it. I had removed myself from her life, and I intended to keep it that way.

For now, I was playing the part of a devastated boyfriend, which wasn't far from the truth. I was devastated, regardless of whether or not Bella was safe, I was miserable without her. Alice kept assuring me that while she couldn't get a fix on Bella's location or what she was doing, she knew she was safe. She'd shown me what she could see, which was snippets here and there of a pair of chocolate brown eyes that I'd know anywhere, or a flip of mahogany hair that smelled of strawberries and freesia. It was Bella, she was just somewhere or with someone that was blocking Alice's abilities.

One evening Alice stormed into the house fuming. If I didn't know better, I'd say sparks were flying out of her hair. "What's up short stack?" Emmett asked, completely unfazed by her outburst.

"Bella got a makeover! Without me!" she yelled. "She cut her hair and dyed it and bought a whole new wardrobe, cute stuff, too! Stuff I would have picked out for her. It's not fair. Where is she and why can't I find her?" she pouted.

"Alice, it's for the best, you know," I told her. "Having us in her life is only a danger to her."

"That's your opinion, Edward. None of us agree with you, except for Rosalie. And it's not for the same reasons that you have," she replied. I knew she was right. Everyone but Rosalie defied my decision to leave Bella. Rosalie only agreed because she thought Bella's presence in our life was a threat to us; she didn't care about the danger it posed to Bella.

"Okay, Alice. I'll compromise with you," I told my pixie of a sister. I knew I'd regret this decision, but I also knew that Alice would never forgive me for forcing her away from her best friend. I was the most dangerous to Bella, Alice could remain her friend, and keep her safe. That much I knew. "If you ever find Bella, you can see her. You can talk to her, or be her friend or whatever, but promise me one thing." She was vibrating with excitement at my words.

"I know, I know Edward. Don't let you see my visions, and don't tell you where she is. Got it!" She grabbed Jasper and flew up the stairs to pack her bags so she could join the international Bella Swan search party. Population two.

* * *

Edward's back to his old idea that Bella doesn't belong in his world... won't he be in a for a real surprise if he finds out what she's been up to?!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Alice PoV

I knew that Bella was brought to Peru by Victoria. I'd seen Edward arrive minutes after Bella disappeared from my visions. I didn't tell Edward this, but I couldn't see Bella at all anymore. I could see others who could see her, but not her specifically. Somehow I could pinpoint her, but only by the people around her. This was odd because I usually couldn't see someone unless I knew them, or unless a decision they made affected the futures of me or my family directly. And perhaps that's what this was about. These people decided to give Bella a second look. They decided to look at her long enough for it to create an impression on their mind strong enough to reach me. Perhaps that because I was so attuned to her that I could see the decisions of those around her, just never hers. All I'd seen thus far was snippets of her with a new hair cut and shopping for new clothes. Then she'd disappear all together for days on end. She looked different. Stronger, more graceful. But I'd also seen her eat food, and yawn, so I knew she was still human. Perhaps she'd acquired a bout of confidence somehow, and it canceled out her clumsiness. Either way, she looked radiant. The haircut suited her, and wasn't much longer than my own pixie cut.

Once Jasper and I reached Peru, we headed straight for the place where Edward found Victoria's smoldering remains. The ground was still scorched where she was set a flame, her ashes long carried away by wind and rain, and there was a brown stain next to it that used to be Bella's blood. It had long since dried and nearly washed away in recent rains, but the scent was still there, although faint. What I couldn't figure out was how it didn't go in any direction. It stopped right there. "She must have been carried," Jasper told me. I looked at him, confused. "The only way I know of to mask a scent of someone is to carry them. That way they're not touching anything to leave the scent behind on. It's not a one hundred percent guaranteed way, but it's rather effective nonetheless. If Bella was carried out of here, and with the rains, her scent will be gone. If we can pinpoint the scent of whoever took her away, we might be able to track that.

We searched around the clearing, sniffing like dogs at rocks, trees, and the ground itself. Either it had been too long, or whoever took Bella had a knack for hiding their trail. "Who are you?" a voice from above called.

I looked up and saw a woman hovering in the air. Literally hovering, Superman style. "Um, we're looking for someone. A missing person," I replied.

"What does she look like?" the woman asked. As I looked at her, I tried to decide what she was. She clearly wasn't human. Her features were far too perfect, like a vampire's. And her eyes were a striking shade of ice blue that practically glowed against her honey toned skin.

"Um, she's five-foot-four. Pale skin, dark brown eyes. Slender. Goes by the name of Bella," I explained. The woman didn't even flinch when I mentioned Bella's name.

"That girl is long gone," she replied. "And I can tell you for certain that she doesn't want to be found. I suggest you stop your search before it gets ugly."

"Listen here," Jasper replied, not liking this woman threatening me. "Bella is a part of our family. Something terrible happened to her, and we need to know she's safe. We love her and we want her back."

The woman lowered herself to the ground and stepped up to Jasper. She was nearly eye to eye with him, completely dwarfing me. "No, you listen to me, vampire," she hissed. "Bella is dead. At least the one you knew is. She doesn't want to be found. No matter how hard you look, you will never find her as long as that is her wish. And save your threats, bloodsucker. I eat animals like you for breakfast. The second she wants to be found, you and your little future seeing ability will see her." With that she snapped her fingers and they were instantly on fire. Her eyes had turned crimson red and her hand was on fire! She wasn't burning, though. With another snap, the flame was extinguished, and her eyes returned to their icy hue. And in the next moment, she was gone. Completely vanished from our sight.

"What. The. Hell." I said.

"How did she know about your ability? Do you think Bella told her?" Jasper asked. "I couldn't get any sort of read on her emotions at all. She blocked me the way Bella is blocking you. The way she always blocked Edward.

"Now we have to decide if whatever she was, was telling the truth or not," I replied.

"Well, either way, she flew in and flew out. That makes it impossible to follow her trail. She must be the one that took Bella from here. Well, saved her life, actually. She must have lost far too much blood to make it out of here on her own. The real question is, do we tell the family? More specifically, Edward?"

"No," I replied. "Edward asked me not to involve him in any of this, and in intend to keep my promise. Looks like we're gonna be on our own for a while, babe." He smiled at the idea of us being a separate couple from the family for a while.

Trixie PoV

I had to be careful to avoid watching the news and reading the papers. Even Facebook apparently had pages all over it with my picture and headlines that read, "Have you seen this girl?" Luckily no one had pinned me to the stories. I guess I looked enough different now that no one had made any correlations. I did keep hearing people talking about me indirectly.

"Did you hear about that missing girl? Father thought she ran off with her boyfriend, but he turned up without her, claiming he'd been looking for her, too. So sad. I hope she gets found soon. The longer it takes, the more likely it is that she's dead, they say." Evidently I had a boyfriend. I wonder how he's faring without me.

I found myself more and more curious about the prospects of this alleged boyfriend. Not enough to turn on the television and see an interview with him, but enough to want to remember what he was like. Did I love him? Did he love me? These were ideas that I couldn't get rid of. They plagued me endlessly. It was all I could think about, all I could dream about. I found myself mourning a boyfriend that I couldn't even remember.

"What's eating you?" Reya asked when she walked in on a particularly embarrassing crying fest.

"I don't know," I replied. "These kids at school were talking about the missing girl, who I assume is me. They kept calling her Bella. They said she had a boyfriend who hasn't stopped looking for her. I can't stop thinking about him. I have no idea what he looks like, nor what his name is, but I find myself mourning him like he died. Why am I mourning someone I can't remember?"

"I'd bet your heart remembers him," she said. "Your heart remembers the love that you felt for him, and now that he's not there, it's triggering that response. Are you sure you don't want to find them?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Not yet anyway. I mean, I can't remember them at all, still. I can't remember anything before I woke up in Argentina. And like you said, I'd just have to say goodbye to them in a few years anyway. I can't let anyone hug me or kiss me now. So why even bother?"

"I'm so sorry, Trixie," she whispered.

"Stop it," I replied. "None of this is your fault, Reya. You saved my life. And yeah, while it got flipped upside down, I don't have it in me to regret what you did, so neither should you. Maybe I was super clumsy in my previous life, or dumb, or a social outcast. Now I can dance pirouettes on a dime and not fall off, I'm smarter than a supercomputer, and I get along with everyone. I was probably a plain Jane, but now I'm radiant, and I feel confident in who I am. It's like I was meant to be this. I love this life. Yeah, it has its drawbacks, sure. But what doesn't? I can fly, Reya. FLY! How many humans can say that? I'm gonna go with zero. Plus, we're immortal. We have all the time in the world to accomplish anything we ever wanted to. Granted, I can't remember what that was, but I love to read and write, so maybe I did before, too. I could be a famous writer, just have to keep my face anonymous. A lot of people do that. They want to share their talent with the world, but want nothing to do with the fame. You could do the same, too, you know. No one paints like you do."

"You're right, Trix," she replied. Her nickname for me was growing on me. At first I didn't like just Trix, I preferred Trixie, but she made it more fun. She even found a vintage t-shirt that had the Trix cereal logo on it. I wore it all the time.

The next week was the end of the semester and the beginning of the summer holiday. We had almost four months. Reya suggested we go to San Francisco where her family lived to visit them. Then we could do some travelling, internationally. And I could meet her other brother. His name was Lukas, and he was like us. Created the same way Reya was. Only he chose to live his life a bit differently, so he and Reya didn't speak much. She said he always came back for holidays though, so she caught up with him then.

"How shall we travel?" Reya asked as we were getting ready to head out to California. "Fly by plane? Fly ourselves? Run? Drive? What would you prefer?"

"Is the weather suitable for flying?" I asked. She checked the weather report for the areas we'd cross and smiled. "Quite a bit of rain and fog between here and Cali. We should be just fine to fly. And if we fall from the sky, it's not like we'd get hurt," she joked. We decided to pack lightly, just a couple pairs of pants and a few shirts that we could mix and match. She said she had clothes at home, too, and I'd fit into her sister's clothes if necessary.

Off we went, waiting until dark that last day of finals. Most of the student population was already on their way home or out partying, to celebrate the end of the semester. Probably killing the brain cells that stored all the knowledge they acquired over the past four months.

Rain was falling heavily, but I hardly noticed. I could see each and every drop as it fell, even see the particles of dirt and other things that were trapped within the water droplets. It was truly something to behold. I couldn't just stand in the rain very often and enjoy it. Someone would walk by and think me crazy for standing out in it, getting wet for no reason.

"Are you ready?" Reya finally asked. We'd both been mesmerized by the falling drops.

"Yep, let's go meet the fam," I replied. I placed my hand in hers and we both closed our eyes, concentrating on displacing the molecules of water in our bodies with the ones in the air. Within seconds we were off the ground and heading upwards into the skies.

We flew over rivers and lakes, using the water from those bodies of water to keep ourselves in the air. I saw the Rocky Mountains for the first time that I remember anyway. They were majestic and powerful. We stopped to have a snowball fight on top of a mountain peak, and maybe sort of caused a minor avalanche. Luckily there was no one in the area below to be affected by it. Oops.

Onward we went, Reya pointing out various cities and towns as we flew over them. Nothing was quite so amazing as flying. I'd probably been in a plane or two in my human life, but even if I could remember those experiences, nothing could have prepared me for this. It was freeing, exhilarating and extremely exciting. We'd fly along with flocks of birds, confusing the hell out of them sometimes. We'd zip around, doing flips and air acrobatics. As long as we concentrated on the water molecules, we'd stay airborne, never a worry of falling. It was only when the air got particularly dry that we had to stop and run part of the way. This happened rarely as it didn't take much water for us to get the lift, but in arid places like New Mexico or Arizona, it was hard to stay alight.

Running was almost as fast as flying though. We could run faster than any car, and practically disappeared with speed, leaving only wind in our wake. I lost count of how many times I'd be almost late for a class but sped across campus in seconds and make it just before the door closed. We also saved a lot of gas that way. Not that we didn't have the money to pay for it, Reya was totally loaded, but one less car on the roads is that much less emissions into the environment. If only everyone could travel this way.

Finally we reached our destination. Reya's parents lived in a nice house on one of the higher hills in San Francisco. Not far from Lombard Street. Reya knocked on the door and we heard tiny little feet careening across the floor, knocking something over and then barreling into the door. The door flew open and a small child of about five or six had a huge grin on his face came through. "Auntie Rey!" the child cried. She scooped him up and twirled him around. Apparently the whole family had converged for the weekend to meet me. Great.

"Hey there sugar pop, how ya doin?" Reya replied. "Trixie, this is my nephew Max. He's Damien's son. Max, this is my new sister Trixie."

"I have another auntie?" he asked. Reya nodded. Max all but launched himself out of Reya's arms and into mine. "Yay Auntie Twixie!" he hollered. I giggled and tickled his sides until he begged me to stop. By now a couple other children and the adults entered the room. They each gave Reya a hug and introduced themselves to me. Luckily my new brain was able to catalog all their names easily. Reya's brother Damien and his wife Amanda had Max, and another baby on the way. Reya promised them it would be a girl, and they were naming her Gloria, which was Reya's middle name.

Reya had a sister named Marie who was married to a woman named Yolanda. They had three kids together, Dorothy, who they called Dot, Mireya, who they named after Reya, but called her Mimi, and their youngest a six month old boy, named Johnny, after Marie's father. Dorothy was adopted, while the younger two were conceived via in vitro. Both Marie and Yolanda each carried one of them.

Next were Reya's parents, John and Nadine. "We couldn't believe it when Reya told us what happened. Who knew she could create more people like her!" Nadine exclaimed. "Welcome to the family, Trixie." She gave me a hug and held me tight. I could already tell that I'd come to think of her as a mother. I hadn't even realized I'd been missing that kind of connection. And I needed it desperately. I clung to her, careful not to squeeze too tightly, lest I break her ribs.

John pulled me in for a hug, too. I loved how warm and welcoming this family was. They apparently figured that if Reya created me, then that made me family. Without question, they accepted me and loved me unconditionally. Reya's other brother Lukas was another story altogether, though. He refused to greet us at the door, and remained in the living room, his eyes fixed on the television.

"Lukas, I'd like you to meet our new sister, Trixie," Reya said. Lukas didn't even turn around. "Lukas, come meet her," she said more firmly. When he still didn't respond, she glared at the back of his head, her eyes darkening. I knew that to mean that she was getting angry. I had yet to see it on myself, but when angered, our eyes turned black as pitch. He grimaced and finally tore his attention away from the television. I glanced at Reya curiously, wondering what she did to make him react that way.

"Hi," he said. Once his eyes met mine, he lit up. "I mean, hello! I'm Lukas!" He jumped up off the couch walked to me and held out his hand. I took it tentatively, but gave a nice firm shake when he squeezed my hand. "It's very nice to meet you." He gave me a hundred watt smile, his vibrant green eyes sparkling at me. This was a look I'd gotten many a time from many a boy at school. I had become adept at brushing them off or letting them know I wasn't interested. Wasn't Lukas supposed to be my brother? Why was he acting like this? Behind him, I saw Reya roll her eyes, and mouth "good luck" to me.

"Shall we join the others?" I suggested, pulling my hand from Lukas'. He nodded and led me out of the room, his hand on the small of my back. Once in the dining room, there were place cards at each chair with our names on them. Marie told me that Max, Dot and Mimi worked hard on them all day. I could barely make out the name on mine, but I was the only one in the room whose name started with a T, so I figured it had to be my chair.

"So, Trixie, tell us about yourself," Nadine said once we all sat down. She started passing around a salad bowl, and I helped scoop a little onto Max's plate who'd insisted his chair be moved to sit beside me. Lukas seemed a bit put off by that fact, but he scowled in silence.

I knew that Reya had told them that she rescued me from a vampire attack, but she left out the fact that I was the missing Bella that was all over the news still, though luckily the stories were dwindling as the search for me turned up fruitless.

"Well, I really can't say much other than what I've done since Reya saved me. I don't remember my life before."

Lukas' head snapped up. "Really? Not anything?"

"Not a single flash of memory, no," I confirmed. "Reya thinks it either has to do with my transition to this life, or with the trauma that I suffered before. Apparently I was pretty banged up and probably had a severe head injury that affected my memories." I gave them an edited version, seeing as there were kids at the table.

"Oh that's terrible. I'm so sorry," Nadine said.

"It's fine Mrs. Summers. I can't remember it, so it doesn't really bother me. But since then I've enrolled as a freshman at the University of Minnesota. I'm studying architecture and Native American studies, including learning the Ojibwe language," I explained.

"That sounds wonderful and please call me Nadine, or Mom, if you so wish, though no pressure," she replied, blushing. "Why Ojibwe?"

"I learned that I can pick up languages pretty quickly. Within hours, actually. And Ojibwe is one of the most difficult languages to learn. I wanted a bit of a challenge. So far it's been harder than the others, but still manageable. Reya is taking Ancient Greek," I said, trying to get the focus off of me. I didn't want to be the center of attention. Lukas seemed to have other ideas, though.

"What all has Reya taught you about what we are?" he asked.

"Lukas, please, not in front of the kids," Nadine whispered.

He rolled his eyes. "They're gonna have to be told sooner or later. Did you guys fly here?" he asked.

"Most of the way, yeah. We got into a couple dry spots and had to run, but that's almost as fun," I replied. He smiled and his eyes got all sparkly again. I looked across the table at Reya who was glaring daggers at him. If I had a clue that Lukas' over-interest in me was his way of flirting, I wish I'd figured it out before dinner was over.

* * *

Will Trixie (Bella) give in and date Lukas? Or will she let him down easy like she does the normal human boys?


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Edward PoV

Bella had been missing for eight months. No one had found even a trace of her. Not even Alice and Jasper. They'd been hot on her trail, I'd thought. And with Alice's visions, they shouldn't have had a problem finding her. Even with whatever was blocking Alice, she was still able to see snippets. Or so she said. She and Jasper hadn't been home since I told her that she could still be in Bella's life. She'd call on the phone once a week or so, and never have any news. With her being so far away, I couldn't tell if her thoughts went along with her words. I had to wonder if she was telling me the truth or not.

We'd posted pictures of Bella on every telephone pole in the Pacific Northwest, along with creating a Facebook campaign and writing articles for every major news network in the country. There simply wasn't a trace of her anywhere. I left out the fact that I knew she'd changed her hair. The only reason I could think of that Bella would do that is if she didn't want anyone to find her or recognize her. I had no idea if this was happening to her against her will, or if she decided it. All Alice could ever tell me was that she knew Bella was safe and happy. "I've seen that much, Edward. I've seen her smiling and laughing, so she must be happy," Alice would say. It was almost the same line, verbatim, every time we spoke.

Did Bella ever think of me? Or did she do exactly as I asked and move on? It pained me to think that she truly could forget about me so easily, not even mourn her loss. I wasn't so egotistical to think that Bella believed the sun rose and set on me, but I knew she loved me. And I knew that when Bella loved, she loved very deeply. Jasper had confirmed as much on more than one occasion. Bella's happiness was all that mattered to me, though. Even if it wasn't with me. While it was what I wanted, for her to move on, it was so very painful.

Chief Swan called about every other day asking if we'd heard anything. He was convinced that if Bella was going to contact anyone first, it'd be me. I had even had to show him my cell phone records to prove that the only calls going in and out of my number were to members of my family. Never to or from Bella. She didn't have a cell phone of her own, but he figured she'd call from someone else's or a payphone.

The search team was dwindling, only a few residents from town and from the Quileute reservation remained. Bella apparently had a few admirers from the tribe; Ephraim Black's grandson, Jacob in particular. I remembered him from the prom; he'd danced with Bella. By now he'd filled out a lot more, grew several inches and to add to that had recently begun phasing into a werewolf.

We were surprised to learn that the gene that triggered the change was still alive in the tribe, and a few members had already phased. Carlisle had met with the pack and the tribal elders shortly after Bella had gone missing. They'd heard from Chief Swan that we weren't involved, but they wanted to hear it from us. Young Jacob still wasn't convinced that we weren't to blame, but the evidence that they had pointed away from us. We showed them where I'd left Bella, right on the trail behind her house. They followed her path to where she fell and saw all the evidence of her tumbling down the hill. Victoria's scent was still present when they were searching, and they knew that she had absconded with Bella.

I told them how I followed as soon as I found out, ending up in Peru. All that was left was a patch of scorched grass where Victoria'd been set on fire, and a patch of blood stained grass next to it. The trail went cold from there. Now, eight months later, all the remnants of her scent have disappeared. I'd crept into her bedroom one night just to get a whiff and it was already fading from there. I threw a few of her belongings in a plastic bag and sealed it tight so as to preserve it. I even wanted to find a way to make her scent into a perfume.

The reality that I chose to cling to was that Bella had moved on. She clearly wanted nothing to do with her old life, and had completely started over. It was excruciating to think of, but not as bad as the alternative. If I allowed myself to think that she was dead or that someone kidnapped her after Victoria and she was being tortured, I'd tear down the Olympic National Forest in rage. Bella had to be okay. She just had to be.

Trixie PoV

San Francisco was gorgeous. Granted the fog rolled in quite often, but overall, I was having the time of my life. Reya took me to see Alcatraz, where we then swam back to the island after hours and had fun playing around inside without the tour guides and security guards to bother us.

She showed me every landmark, took me to every famous restaurant and in the evenings, back at the house, I spent my time playing with the nieces and nephews and dealing with Lukas. He'd stolen an hour or two of my time here and there, and always wanted more.

I liked him, he was attractive, and Reya assured me that he wasn't actually her brother. She just thought of him that way. And therefore I had no biological link to him, so if we ever moved beyond whatever it was we were doing, it wouldn't be weird. I thought about that one evening for hours. I felt bad for Reya because she had no one. Lukas and I were the only ones like her on the planet. She thought of both of us as siblings, so there were no options for her. I had an option. I could be with Lukas. Goodness knew he was interested. But similarly we were each other's only options.

Though Reya told me he found ways around the no-touching policy. Evidently if we concentrated hard enough, we could convince a human that we were normal, or make them not notice or care about the hardness of our skin. He'd had a few trysts that way. Reya said he was a bit of a player, and not to let him get too close, emotionally. He'd broken a lot of hearts, I was told.

"Let's get outta here," Lukas said one night, popping his head into my room. I'd been curled up in the corner, in my papasan chair, reading. "You sit in the house too much."

"Lukas, I was out with Reya all day. And took the kids to the park after dinner," I retorted.

"Yeah, yeah, boring stuff. C'mon, I've got something I want to show you. I promise you'll love it." I doubted that very much. He hadn't shown me anything yet that Reya hadn't, and nothing he said I'd _love_ even registered on my fun-meter. "Seriously! Let's go," he said. His eyes sparkled again. I had a hard time resisting him when he did that. I placed my bookmark, even though I knew exactly what word and page I was on, grabbed my shoes and followed him down the stairs and out the door.

He grabbed my hand and we were off like a shot, running through the city at top speed. There weren't many people out, so we didn't have to worry about anyone seeing us. They'd likely just consider it a sudden gust of wind, anyway. He led me towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which I'd seen already. "Lukas, I've seen the bridge already," I told him.

"Not like this, you haven't," he replied. He pulled me onward and up one of the thick cords of the bridge. I remembered a bit of trivia that painting the bridge is a full time job. Once they finish painting it, they have to start all over again at the other end. Beneath my feet, I could see the paint already chipping that had only been there a few months.

Before long we reached the top of the tallest point of the bridge. I looked out around me at the beauty of the water, the city, and the stars above. "Wow, this is beautiful," I whispered. Lukas pulled me against him and wrapped his arms around my waist. This was as intimate as he'd gotten thus far, and for the first time, I didn't have it in me to pull away.

"Not as beautiful as you," he replied, whispering into my ear. And the spell was broken.

"How many girls have you used that line on?" I asked, unwrapping myself from his embrace.

"None that ever called me on it," he replied, chuckling. I smiled. I was turned towards him, my back against the railing. He moved in front of me and placed his arms on either side of me, grabbing on to the rail. His body was less than an inch from mine, his lips almost touching my forehead. "Look, Trixie, I don't know what Reya has told you about me. Well, yes I do. She thinks I'm a player, and maybe she's right. But I wouldn't play you, Trixie. I mean, you're like me. You get what it's like to be what we are. I don't want to play the 'we're the only ones of our kind, so we should get together card,' but if it'll work," he joked.

I giggled. "Lukas, I like you, but I—"and he cut me off by pressing his lips to mine. Whether or not this was my first kiss, I didn't know but damn if it wasn't amazing. His lips moved against mine like velvet against satin.

"You like me," he whispered before kissing me again. "That's all I need to hear. The rest is up to me." He removed his hands from the rail and wrapped them around me, pressing me against him tightly. I wrapped my hands around his shoulders and moved my fingers into his hair. Then I froze. It took a moment for him to realize I wasn't responding, but he finally pulled away. "Trixie? What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. Something about putting my fingers in your hair was familiar. But I can't figure out why. That happens a lot," I reply.

"What happens a lot? You running your fingers through a guy's hair while he's kissing you at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge?"

"Ha ha," I laugh sarcastically. "No, the familiar feeling. It's like my body remembers doing that action before, but that's it. Like I have muscle memory, but no brain memory. It's very disorienting. But it's over now, so if you wanted to kiss me again, I'd be totally ok—" and his lips were on mine again.

He moved his hands to my hips and squeezed ever so slightly, eliciting a moan from me. He groaned in response and kissed me harder. I felt his tongue brush along my bottom lip, requesting entrance. I parted my lips slightly and his tongue invaded my mouth. I slipped my tongue into his and together we danced, tasting each other, learning more and more about one another as we went along. I learned that he liked it when I tugged on his hair; he'd groan every time. He learned that I liked it when he squeezed my hips tightly and held me close.

And then I learned that I, too, liked having my hair tugged on. He snaked his hand up my back and to the nape of my neck, where he fisted his hand in my hair and pulled. My head automatically went back, which pulled my lips from his. He took this opportunity to latch himself onto my neck, where I learned I had a very sensitive neck, too. Right above the collar bone and right behind the ear were places that drove me bonkers.

"Trixie," he breathed against my neck. "Your flavor is out of this world. I could kiss you for days and never tire of it." All I could do was moan in response.

I opened my eyes in shock when he bit my neck. It wasn't painful; in fact it was rather pleasant. As my eyes opened I realized it was starting to get lighter out, rather than darker. How long had we been standing on this bridge, making out? "Lukas, it's nearly dawn. We should head back."

"Only if you let me hold you in my arms while we sleep," he replied. God, he was laying it on thick. But it did actually sound nice. I agreed, and we were off at top speed again down the links of the bridge and back home within minutes.

We crept into the house as quietly as possible so as not to wake anyone. It was five AM, and I knew that John would be waking soon to get ready for work. Once in my room, Lukas led me to the bed, pulled down the covers and waited for me to get in. I didn't sleep in my jeans, and I wasn't about to start. In a fit of confidence, I unbuttoned them and pulled them off my legs. I then reached under the back of my shirt to unhook my bra and remove it. His eyes were on me the whole time, wide and surprised.

I climbed in the bed and patted the space next to me, gesturing for him to get in. He slid in and I turned on my side away from him. Kissing him goodnight, I snuggled into him and was asleep within minutes.

As I fell into a deeper sleep, a familiar dream began to take place. I was following a man through a forest. I could only ever see the back of his head, and I could never quite catch up to him. He was dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans, a grey pea coat, and had a head of wildly bronze hair that shot off in every direction.

The familiarity began to take hold and I knew that soon he would disappear and I would fall. It happened every time I had this dream. He'd be gone from my sight and I'd lose my balance, falling to the forest floor. Only I never stopped falling, it was like the ground was miles away from my feet. I tumbled downwards endlessly until I was woken up suddenly for no reason.

But this time, it was different. I followed the man but I kept getting closer to him instead of further away. It was like he finally wanted me to catch him. I reached out and touched his shoulder. He didn't turn, but he reached up and placed his hand over mine. I held back a flinch at the temperature. His hand was ice cold and hard as granite. He turned his head infinitesimally and said two words, "be happy." His voice was so full of sorrow and despair that I wanted to cry. In fact I did, and it woke me up.

Or rather, Lukas woke me up. He shook my shoulder gently, calling out to me. "Trixie, sweetheart, wake up," he said quietly. "You're having a bad dream."

"What? Oh," I replied, wiping tears away from my eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his eyes filled with concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was just a weird and oddly sad dream. I'm okay. What time is it?"

"Almost eleven. Everyone's gone for the day," he said.

"Jeez, half the day is gone." I hopped out of bed, grabbed some clothes from the closet and ran out to the bathroom. Lukas followed me out, a confused look on his face, and asked me what was wrong.

"Nothing's wrong, Lukas. I just don't like sleeping so late," I replied. It wasn't a complete lie; I was very much a morning person. In all truth, I needed a moment to analyze the dream I'd just had. Why, after all these months, did the man finally speak? His voice was so beautiful, like liquid velvet, but so sad. It was like it killed him to say those words to me. Was he the boyfriend that I couldn't remember? Was my subconscious telling me to get over him and be happy with Lukas?

As I scrubbed my body, I thought about what a relationship with Lukas would mean. He made me laugh, he was a gentleman, and last night he demonstrated that he was a very good kisser. But what did he want? Did he want a relationship? Or just someone to fool around with? Did I even want a relationship?

Finally, I emerged from the bathroom after doing everything at a human's pace and even taking the time to carefully style my now short hair. Lukas was waiting on the other side of the door, a scowl on his face. "Trixie, seriously. What's wrong?"

I sighed and decided to tell him the truth. Gesturing for him to follow me back into the bedroom, I sat in the papasan chair while he sat cross legged at the foot of the bed. "Do you remember hearing about that missing girl? The one named Bella?" I asked. He nodded, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"I'm her," I replied. His eyes went wide. "I cut my hair and started wearing fake glasses to try to not be recognized. I did this because I don't remember that life. Not a second of it. I couldn't tell you if I had both of my parents, any friends, or anything. I didn't even know my name. The only correlation I had was that 'Bella' was written on the inside of my shoes and I guess I match the description of the missing girl. Or did before I changed my hair.

"Reya explained what I am now and I decided that it would be for the best if I never went back. Why create new memories with people I don't remember only to have to leave them again in a few years before they realize I don't age? But lately, I've been having dreams. Well it's only one dream; it's the same one every time. Except for last night.

"It was different. I caught up to the person I'd been chasing, touched them, and they spoke to me. I have no idea what it means, but it freaked me out. I'm sorry if I upset you."

"I'm just worried about you, Trixie. You had this life dumped on you in a really weird way. You didn't go through all the dozens of transitions that Reya and I did, which is both a good and a bad thing. You have to deal with all these abilities, and not let them control you, all while trying to figure out who you are as a person. It's a lot to handle."

He stepped towards me and pulled me into his arms. I felt safe wrapped in them, like he would protect me from the world. And maybe he would. "What do you want, Lukas?" I asked. He looked at me. "With me," I added. "I mean we kissed, we cuddled, you saw me in my underpants... what else?"

"I want all of you, Trixie. Mind, body and soul. I want you to want that from me, too. I feel a connection with you, different than the one I feel with Reya. I don't know if I believe in the whole soul-mates thing, but I think we'd be really great together. And the fact that I don't have to hide what I am from you is a big plus."

"Are you sure you want to be with me? I mean, I don't even know my own name," I said.

"You're Trixie. That is your name. Whoever you were before doesn't matter. I'm falling for who you are now. Big time," he told me. I gazed at him, completely stupefied. He basically just declared his feelings for me, and we'd only been on one date. And I wasn't sure that a make out session on top of the Golden Gate Bridge even qualified as a date. And then I wondered how many girls he'd taken up there.

He held me like that in the hallway at the top of the stairs for what seemed like hours. Eventually we made it downstairs and cooked some food. He sat at the kitchen table while I made waffles. Once again, I was hit with that familiar feeling. It was almost like déjà vu. In fact that was exactly what it felt like. Like I'd done this exact same thing before. But I could remember every moment of every day in perfect clarity since I woke up in Argentina after my transformation. I knew it hadn't happened since then, so it must have been before. When I was human.

As time went on, the more and more I wanted to know about my previous life, yet I was terrified to find out.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jacob PoV

I couldn't help but believe that ginger bloodsucker when he said he didn't know where Bella was. He looked so broken and sad that I just knew he was telling the truth. Bella had been taken by that red-headed leech and now she'd completely disappeared. The tiny psychic leech said she could see Bella sometimes and that she was alive and happy.

What I did have a hard time believing was that Bella would just up and run away. Why would she completely cut everyone off? Not even call her dad or her mom or anything? Why wouldn't she at least let someone know she was safe? No one had heard anything. Not a single tip had turned out to be legit, or even close to Bella.

There was something else going on, and I was going to find out what. Almost a year had passed and there was no trace of her. She had to come home some time right? Unless the psychic-pixie was wrong, and something terrible happened to Bella. Either way, I had to know. If Bella truly did move on from Forks, not tell anyone, and wanted to be left alone, I'd have to respect her wishes.

First, I tried to think like Bella. Where would she go if she needed a change of pace? It didn't help though, that evidence of her presence was found in Peru. I didn't have a passport, and it's not like a horse-sized wolf could just waltz across the border un-noticed. But then I figured she'd probably go to the one place that no one would ever think to look. Everyone knew that she hated the cold and rain here, so she'd be least likely to go to a place with similar weather to Forks. All of the Pacific Northwest had been searched with a fine-tooth comb, so I knew she wasn't anywhere nearby.

There hadn't been any hits on her bank account or credit card that Charlie'd given her for emergencies. So, how was she getting money? Was she with someone? I kept going back to the Cullens. They had more than enough money to support her, wherever she went, and they were good enough at lying that they could be telling us they weren't involved in Bella's disappearance, when they were the reason behind it.

I didn't know what to think. That Edward guy seemed so broken, I didn't think even the best actor could make that up. And why would his family lie to him about Bella's whereabouts? What I did know was that the pixie and her scarred mate were off together, supposedly searching for Bella. Maybe I'd start with them, and see what they know.

I stopped at the Cullens' house to see if they knew where the other two were. Edward answered the door, saying he thought they were in Nebraska. "At least that's what she told me the last time she called," he added. So it seemed that even _he_ wondered at the truth behind her words.

"Here's a credit card that you can use to buy whatever you need. Plane tickets, gas, food, hotel rooms, whatever you need Jacob. Just find her," he begged. It seemed like his year without Bella was making him desperate.

I went off towards Nebraska, catching a flight to Omaha. Next, I searched through the towns for a vampire scent, and finally after a day and a half of searching I found them. Alice and Jasper were in a hotel room, likely keeping indoors for the day, as the sun was out. It irked me slightly when I found out that sun didn't hurt them. All it really did was limit their mobility during the day, which helped some, but I'd rather that the leeches just burst into flames in the sun. It would have made my life a lot easier.

I went up the stairs, having walked right past the concierge without paying her a second look. I had to act as if I knew where I was going, like I was a guest. The downside was, I wasn't dressed like I was a guest of this hotel, and any concierge or bellhop would likely remember seeing a six-foot-seven native American behemoth checking in. Either way, no one followed me, and no one asked any questions.

Alice PoV

"Our futures just disappeared!" I yelled. Suddenly everything just went completely blank. It was as if my gift just stopped working altogether.

"What are you talking about Ali?" Jasper asked.

"Everything is blank. I can't see anything or anyone! It's like my gift disappeared."

"You can probably blame that on me," a low baritone voice said from behind us. I turned to open the door and there standing in the hallway was a mountain of a man, known as Jacob Black. "I'm a werewolf, so I guess I interfere with your abilities, right?"

"Yes, you do," I replied. "What are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you, too," he retorted. "I'm here to help you look for Bella."

"Well, I was having a hell of a hard time seeing her before you showed up. Now I can't see her at all!"

"How about this, short stack. We do it the old fashioned way... look," he said. I rolled my eyes. I knew Bella didn't want to be found, but I was keeping up this charade for Edward's sake. Now do I tell the dog the truth or pull him into this ridiculous lie? Jasper sent me a jolt of honesty, which gave me the answer I needed.

"Bella doesn't want to be found," I whispered. Jacob asked me why. "I'm not exactly sure, but I know she went to great lengths to alter her appearance and told her companion that she didn't want to be found. And if she ever came across anyone looking for her, to let them know that Bella wants to be left alone. I don't know why Bella feels that way, but I guess after breaking up with Edward, she needed a fresh start, which makes perfect sense to me."

"So if that's the case, why don't you just tell Edward that? He's beside himself with worry. Looks like he hasn't hunted in weeks," Jacob said. I frowned at that knowledge.

"Edward's always been a self-flagellating pity party," Jasper said, pretty much mirroring my thoughts. "Besides, if we tell him that we were approached by someone who said Bella didn't want to be found, not only would he not believe that person, he'd go into a frenzy trying to find her. He's got some complex about controlling and protecting her, and to be honest, I think she's better off without him. Until he can let her make decisions for herself, and include her in everything, rather than keeping her in the dark about things he thinks are too dangerous, he doesn't deserve her."

"Well said, Jazz," I told my mate. "I believe that Edward and Bella are meant for each other. They are each other's mates, but Edward has a lot of growing up to do first. And Bella needs to figure out who she is, too. She was too dependent on my brother, letting the sun rise and set on him, but not being a strong individual. Once she does that and Edward gets over his controlling protective nature, they'll be truly happy together. That I've seen, and that vision hasn't changed." I chose to leave out the part about Bella chopping off all her hair. Jacob didn't need that fuel if he decided to go off searching for her on his own.

"Hmm, well this puts a damper in my plans. Do you really think that Bella wanted to be left alone?" Jacob asked.

"I think so," Jasper replied. "The person who told us that Bella didn't want to be found was being very sincere. I always know when someone's lying to me. She was telling the truth; she helped Bella, saved her from Victoria, killed Victoria, and then took Bella under her wing, so to speak. We're not sure where they're at, but as Alice said, if word of this gets back to Captain Emo-pants, he'll lose his shit."

"Fair enough," Jacob replied. "Well, I can't exactly go back to Forks just yet. Edward'll be all over me asking about Bella. I am good at keeping my thoughts hidden, but I'm no expert at it. Maybe I'll just do some travelling. Make it look like I'm on her trail or something?" I liked his idea. It was more or less along the lines of what Jasper and I were doing. We'd stay in a town for a couple weeks, and then move on under the guise of that we must have just missed Bella. I could tell that Edward was beginning to see through our façade, but what else could I do?

I'd seen the outcome of if I told him the truth. That I'd lied about being able to see her, and that I was approached by some superwoman flying through the air, who could make her eyes turn red and fire shoot out of her fingers, who told me that Bella didn't want to be found. Yeah, I didn't need to be a psychic to know that wouldn't go over well.

The best path was to keep up with the lie, that I'd see a flash of Bella in a certain café, or a restaurant that I could easily recognize. We'd be off to whatever city and state it was in, and look for her, and wait there until I got another flash. Sometimes it would be weeks or months at a time between flashes. Or so I told Edward and the family. I was still getting the choppy images, but it was never concrete enough to tell me where she was. The only one that helped at all was one where she was standing outside, and looking up at the snow falling down. Someone had stopped and stared at her long enough for it to make an impression, and make its way to me. But even then, there is snow in a lot of places. She could've been just about anywhere.

Edward PoV

It had been a year since Bella disappeared. And there were still zero leads. Not even Alice, Jasper and Jacob were making any headway. I was beginning to have my doubts about the truth behind their desire to search, but once Jacob joined them, I figured it had to be real. Bella just became very good at hiding herself, apparently.

I realized how stupid I was to leave her in that forest alone. I should have made sure she got home safely. In all truth, I shouldn't have led her out there at all; I shouldn't have left her. I thought I was doing the right thing, removing myself from her life, but it turned out that it was the worst mistake I had ever made. If we ever found her, I'd spend the rest of eternity trying to earn her forgiveness, trust, and love once again.

As I sat and thought about how to go on, how to search for her when the others were coming up empty handed, the news began. There was a story about some guy who allegedly saw two superheroes running along the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I rolled my eyes at the thought, but then again, it could have been vampires. San Francisco wasn't terribly far from the Pacific Northwest, so if it was vampires, it might be a good idea to go and check it out, in case the Volturi decided to get involved.

"I was just sitting out on my balcony, and I got a real nice view of the bridge from there. It's real pretty at sunset, so I was sitting out there, and I saw something moving along one of the cables. I got out my binoculars, and sure enough, there were two people running up the cables, jumping from post to post, landing effortlessly as they went. It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. I worked on that bridge for fifteen years; no way could a human do what those two were doing. They didn't even have ropes or harnesses or anything on," the witness said. He seemed to be of sound mind. Too bad he wasn't able to get a video of it. Then I'd have a better way to know if it was a vampire or not.

"And there's been a lot less crime lately. I think there's someone or maybe two someones out there fighting crime. It's like we have our very own Spiderman and woman!" The guy was starting to lose his credibility with that statement, and soon the newscast went on to the next story, though the anchors did corroborate that the crime rates had dropped lower than they'd been in years, within the last three months.

"Hey Eddie!" Emmett hollered as he came in the door. "Oh you're watching the news! Yeah, you saw that story about that guy who saw superheroes on the bridge?" I nodded. "Yeah, Carlisle thinks we should check it out, in case it's a pair of vamps being stupid."

It seemed my father's line of thinking was along with my own. That night we'd packed up the cars and were headed to San Francisco, in search of two vampires who were being less than careful.

"Let's start at the bridge," Emmett suggested, thinking that we could possibly still pick up a trail. It hadn't rained recently, so the trail should be relatively untainted. We waited until it was midnight before climbing the bridge, from the opposite side from where the man on the news said he saw the "superheroes."

We got to the highest point of the bridge and I was hit with a scent that I'd know anywhere. Bella. When was she in San Francisco? Why didn't Alice see that? And how in the world did she get to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge? Emmett's thoughts were along the same track, as well as Carlisle's. I wasn't the only one who smelled her. "This is effing weird," Emmett said.

"Agreed," Carlisle added. "Shall we follow the trail?"

"If this means we find her, then yes, Carlisle. Yes!" I said as I began running down the other end of the bridge, following the trail. It wove through the city some how, leaping up onto rooftops and jumping across to the next building. Was she being carried this way? The other scent that was with hers didn't seem to be vampiric, but that didn't mean much. What with the world of gifted vampires, there could be one that was able to mask his or her scent to appear human.

The trail went on, finally ending up in a residential area, not far from Lombard Street. I scaled the side of the house, peeking in each window. There was an older couple, in their sixties, asleep in bed. The rest of the house was empty. It had many other bedrooms, but none of them were inhabited, the beds made as if waiting for company to come. I found one window that was slightly cracked, and Bella's scent was most concentrated there. Entering the room, I could tell she'd been here, and for quite a while, too, as her scent permeated everything in the room.

But it was clear she was no longer here, the dressers were empty, as well as the closet. Anything that belonged to her was gone now. Was she keeping two steps ahead of us all this time? Is that why Alice is having such a hard time getting a fix on her? The scent told me she was still human, in fact, her aroma seemed to be even stronger than before. Even more irresistible.

"What's up there, Ed?" Emmett asked from outside. I met him on the ground mumbling that I'd found nothing but her scent. And I may or may not have absconded with a pillowcase. Which I later stuffed into a vacuum sealed bag, to preserve her scent as long as possible. I had no idea how long it'd be until I got to smell it again. If ever.

"Well, at least we've confirmed that they were not vampires," Carlisle said. "Neither scent was vampiric in anyway. But then that raises the question of how on earth two humans were able to scale the bridge and leap from building to building like that. If it weren't for the impossibility of that scenario, I'd almost believe it."

"It could be true, Dad," Emmett replied. "I mean, humans have been writing about vampires for thousands of years, and we exist. They've also been writing about humans who possess superhuman traits for just as long, if not longer. Why couldn't those exist, too? There are werewolves and shape-shifters, why not super-humans, too?"

I hated to admit it, and I never would out loud, but my brother made a valid point. It made sense that there could be some variety of super-humans. There was enough technology and leaps in science for those ideas to become plausible.

Soon, dawn would break, and it was looking to be a cloudy day, so we decided to do a little reconnaissance and find out if anyone else had heard about the superheroes or if they'd seen anything they couldn't explain.

It didn't take long. We came upon a newsstand where the young owner was thinking about how thankful she was that she didn't get mugged a few nights before. She was telling her story to one of her regulars. "I'm telling you, it was incredible! I was just walking home after closing up shop, and this young man in all black came up and tried to take my purse from me. He held out a gun and threatened to shoot me if I didn't give him my bag. I tried to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth.

"Then, when I went to bite him, all of a sudden, I was only biting my own lip. His hand wasn't there any more. I'd blinked and he disappeared! One minute I was fighting for my life, the next I was alone on the street. I remembered that news cast from the other night about the guy who saw those people on the bridge. If they were real, they deserved my thanks. I said, 'thank you,' out loud and a few seconds later heard a giggle and a reply of 'you're welcome.' It was the most incredible thing!

As she told her story, I read her thoughts, and she was telling the truth. What her human eyes couldn't see, though, I did. I saw the brief flash of a pair of pale arms taking the man away, removing his hand from her mouth and carrying him away down an alley. It took the vigilante less than half a second to do it. Vampire speed. Only the skin wasn't pale enough to be a vampire. I told my findings to Carlisle and Emmett. "So there is something going on. And it's not vampires. Perhaps we should stick around just to see what we can find," Carlisle suggested.

In the days following, we found not a single trace of Bella's scent, and we scoured the city for it. The original trail was fading, and no new ones popped up. This led us to believe that she was no longer in the city. The crime rate was waning each day, too. And while when I had my vigilante days, the crime rate went down, but the missing persons list was getting longer and longer. The men I killed were reported missing, and to this day the bodies have never been found.

That wasn't the case here. There were no missing persons. In fact, we ran across one young kid who had been trying to rob a convenience store, but was quickly derailed by some invisible force. In his memory, I saw the same image of a person yanking them out of the doorway of the convenience store. It appeared as though this vigilante had some kind of telepathic ability, as all of a sudden, the young man no longer wanted to rob the store. The next morning, he was out filling out job applications and looking into going back to school. Even the kid knew something was weird, but couldn't put his finger on it.

That night, we decided to head back home. Bella's presence was long gone, and whatever was fighting crime here wasn't a vampire so, therefore, it didn't concern us. On our way out of the hotel, we were stopped by a figure standing in the dark.

"You've been following me," the voice said. It was distinctly masculine, clearing any thought I had that it was Bella. "What are you doing here, bloodsuckers?" it asked.

"Bloodsuckers? I beg your pardon," Carlisle replied, using the required phraseology when vampires are outed by a human, such as this case.

"Can it," the voice replied, cold. "I know you're vampires, and you know that I'm something else, too. I repeat, what are you doing here?"

"We were searching for a member of our family that has gone missing," I told him. "We had a lead that she was here, but it didn't pan out, so we're on our way out of town." I tried searching the man's thoughts for any indication that he knew of any missing girls, but he was completely blank to me. Just like Bella. What on earth was going on here?

"About eighteen years old? Pale skin, real pretty. Brown eyes, dark hair? Scar on her right wrist?" he asked.

"Yes!" we all chorused in unison. "Do you know her? Where is she?"

"Long gone," he replied. "And doesn't want to be found." Before I could ask another question, he was gone. Vanished from our sight in the blink of an eye. We searched the streets around us for a sign, but there wasn't a trace of him.

Now more than ever, I knew that Bella was not okay. She was not safe. Why wouldn't she want to be found? She had to know that her father was worried sick about her. Her mother, too. Even if she didn't give a damn about me or my family any more, she had to still love them, and want them to know she was safe. I had to find her.


	7. Chapter 7

Warning** There's a reference to rape in this chapter. It doesn't actually happen, but there's talk about it, and an "almost" situation. Skip it if it makes you uncomfortable.

* * *

Chapter 7

Reya PoV

"Hey, Lukas, what's up?" I said, answering the phone.

"Some bloodsuckers were here looking for Trixie," he told me. "I didn't tell them anything other than that she doesn't want to be found, but they seemed pretty determined to keep looking, regardless." I knew we'd left San Francisco at the right time. Granted, we left right before the next semester started, but still. We'd debated transferring to the University there, and living with my parents, but then at the last minute, decided to head back to Minnesota. Trixie said she just had a feeling that we needed to be in Minneapolis instead.

"Thank god we left when we did," I told him. It had to be the same two that were in Peru, looking for her. "What did they look like?" I asked him, to verify that fact.

"There were three of them, all male," he replied. "One had reddish brown hair, he looked like he was lost and devastated. Another was huge, at least six-foot-six and nearly as wide. And the third one was blonde, had a kind and calm demeanor, which seemed odd, given what they are. None of them hunted in the city, so I had no reason to kill them. Do you want me to track them?" he asked.

"No, I'll keep an eye out, thanks bro," I told him.

"No prob, sis. And um, will you tell Trixie that I miss her?" I rolled my eyes at his request, but agreed to, nonetheless.

Now I had to keep a lookout for five vampires, instead of just the two. Keeping Trixie from running into her past was becoming a full time job. I let her think it was her idea to get the hell outta dodge when we left Frisco, but I'd seen them coming. I had a dream about it, and knew they'd be in the city within the next few days. I may have planted the idea that we go back to school and that we'd be away from Lukas, and she ran at it. Good thing, too, as my dream ended up playing out exactly as I'd seen it.

I did wonder if the three men that Lukas ran into were in the same coven as the two that I met in Peru. If so, then that was one big coven. Did Trixie know about vampires before? Was she truly part of their family? Perhaps the boyfriend that she mourns was one of them. That would make sense. And aside from Lukas, a vampire would be the only other being that could compete with our strength. As repulsive as that idea was to me, it was a step above dating Lukas, in my opinion.

They'd tried to be secretive about it, but I knew all about their little tryst. I think Trixie was more interested in the company Lukas provided. He was interested in her romantically. I think they had a little fun now and then, but the majority of their relationship was fighting crime. San Francisco's crime rate plummeted in the months we were there. I had no part of it, as I chose to live my life differently. I'd still stop a thief or another criminal if it was happening nearby, or save someone's life if they were about to get into an accident or something, but going out and searching for criminals was not my MO.

Trixie had fun with it though. She said it was exhilarating, chasing criminals in getaway cars on foot, and seeing the bewildered expressions on their faces when she would catch up to them, running along side their windows. It had gotten to the point where criminals were afraid to commit crimes. Lukas had fun having a partner, too. I could never fulfill that role for him, but Trixie did so perfectly.

She decided to keep up the vigilante work in Minneapolis, but only part time. She didn't want her presence to be known as much as it was in San Francisco. Lukas was all about being a superhero, even had an outfit with a mask and everything. Trixie had played along with that, but it wasn't her cup of tea. She'd rather be a silent hero, and never be visible to accept the thanks from the ones she saved.

When we decided to end our stay in California, Trixie decided to end things with Lukas as well. She'd pulled me aside and asked me how to go about it. "I like him, and all, but I'm nowhere near ready for the commitment he seems to want from me. And I don't know if I even want that kind of relationship with him," she said.

"If you aren't feeling it now, then chances are, you won't," I told her. "Just be honest with him, but don't be so blunt as you are with me. Tell him that you're not ready."

She'd done just that, and while it upset Lukas, he seemed to take it in stride. Though he was convinced that she'd come running back to him soon. And he'd play hard to get, pretend she broke his heart, and that it would take a lot for him to forgive her. It was all a game to him. Even with Trixie, it was a game. Though I had to hand it to him. He'd been more himself with her than with anyone he'd ever been with before.

Back in Minnesota, school picked up again, and we were thrown into our studies. On weekends, Trixie would head out for "walks" as she called them, though I knew she was walking the streets in case she happened upon a crime in progress. As a result though, the number of rapes on campus dwindled to only a few. Soon she began frequenting parties, on the look out for young girls who'd been given far too much to drink, or who had rohypnol in their systems. I joined her for those, as one of my causes was ending violence against women, and that included rape in all forms.

One night, there was a guy who'd been known to have "roofied" at least a dozen girls in the past month, and these were only the girls that knew they'd been raped. Others had no idea it had happened, they just woke up on the couch at a party, fully clothed, and assumed they passed out from too much alcohol. Leaving this bozo none the wiser. This enraged both Trixie and I. The girls often had no clue who'd done it to them, and he'd been using condoms, so there was no DNA evidence to go on. And that's even if the girls didn't shower before reporting the crime to the police. His reign of terror was soon to be over.

We arrived at the party having gotten all dressed up to the nines. One guy told me I looked like sex on legs, and that's where I learned they coined the term, "asking for it." Just because women choose to dress sexy does not mean they are asking for it. When the male mind is on sex 79% of the time, they could see a girl in a sweatshirt and jeans and still say she was asking for it.

One guy in particular gave Trixie all kinds of attention. A look into his mind confirmed our suspicions that he was the rapist we were looking for. And sure enough, after he'd given Trixie at least half a dozen drinks, drinks that were far too strong for a normal human system to handle, he brought her the 7th drink with a pill dropped in it.

She took the drink graciously, glancing at me briefly before taking a small sip. I saw her grimace minutely at the new flavor. Our enhanced taste buds could taste the drug in the drink and it was very unpleasant. "Wanna go for a walk?" he asked her. She smiled widely, playing her part and let him lead her out the door. The shed on the property was where he liked to do his dirty deed, then carrying the passed out girls back inside, arranging them on the couch, where they often wouldn't even know what had happen. It was only the virgins that knew for certain.

I listened carefully as Trixie pretended to be very drunk and feeling the side effects of the drug. "Oh wow, I'm so tired," she said, slurring her words a bit. She might have been over-acting a bit, but he was playing right into her ploy, thinking he had her right where he wanted her. Another notch on his belt. Another girl to brag to the guys about.

_This one's the hottest one yet,_ he thought to himself. I wondered how far Trixie would let him get before she yelled red. I knew she didn't want him to touch her, and so far, he hadn't, aside from brushing her hair behind her ear.

As Trixie began pretending to pass out, I could hear him undo his belt buckle, preparing for his next conquest. I heard the tell tale rip of a foil packet just before he screamed in agony. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Trixie yelled. She'd grabbed a hold of his offending member and squeezed it hard.

"Ow! You crazy bitch! Let go of me? Don't you know how to give a proper hand job?!" he yelled. He was trying to play it off, like she came on to him, and not that he gave her a drug filled drink.

"Twenty-seven," she said. "Twenty-seven girls on your list, right?" she said.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked her. He was still groaning in pain, wondering how in the hell her grip was so tight. _Any tighter and she'd squeeze the damn thing off_, he thought.

"That's how many girls you've raped. How many you've brought out to this very shed, taken advantage of them, then you bring them back into the house, lay them on the couch, and in the morning, they haven't a clue what happened. But that's not always true, is it? Some girls know. Some girls remember it was you that gave them all their drinks. But they're too afraid to confront you about it. That ends now," she hissed.

She gave him one hard punch in the face, hard enough to knock him out, but not so hard that the authorities wouldn't believe a human of her size could accomplish it. She ripped her shirt in a couple places and broke the zipper on her jeans so it would look like she'd put up a struggle before getting the upper hand. She even discolored her skin around her wrists to make it look like bruises were forming. I'd taught her well.

Running back in the house, she demanded for someone's cell phone. "That jackass just tried to rape me," she said to one of the house's brothers. He asked who. "Timbo," was her response. His eyes widened in surprise. He knew what his frat brother did in that shed, and chose not to report him. In my opinion that made him just as guilty as Timbo was.

Playing the protective sister role, I grabbed two others and we went out to the shed to keep an eye on the culprit. "Dang, she beat his ass up!" one guy said.

"Serves him right. How dare he do that to her? And look at this place? There's a mattress and all kinds of pillows out here. I'd bet she wasn't the first. Hell, she should have torn his dick off," the other said.

Back in the house, Trixie was on the phone with the police, telling them what happened. They arrived minutes later to get the story in person. Upon seeing Trixie's bedraggled appearance, they already assumed the worst. "No, no, he didn't get that far," she assured them. "I came out of my stupor soon enough to realize what was happening and I fought back."

"Good for you," the officer said. "Now, where is this dirt bag?" I chuckled silently. I didn't think cops actually used the term 'dirt bag' in real life. Trixie led the cops out to the backyard and pointed to the shed. "My sister and these guys were keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't try to get away.

"Good thinking," the officer commended her. "Now, tell me exactly what you remember."

"Well, I remember him giving me drinks, and lots of them. I poured half of them into a plant inside, as I didn't want to get too drunk. Then when he brought me the last drink, I took one sip of it, and it tasted funny. I chose to be cautious and only pretend to drink it from there on out. He invited me for a walk, and when he led me to this shed, I had a pretty good idea what for. I did start to get a little loopy and it was when I heard him open the condom packet that I knew what his intentions were.

"I said no, and told him to stop, but he didn't. He grabbed my wrists and held them above me on the ground," she explained. She held up her wrists and showed the officers the "bruises" that were forming in the shape of his hand. "I was able to maneuver my leg to kick him in the groin. After a second he got up and started grabbing at me, ripping my clothes, and then I finally was able to hit him in the face. He fell back, hitting his head on the floor, which gave me enough time to get away and get to a phone inside."

"You were very brave," the officer said. "What's your name?"

"Marie," she replied. We'd decided to use pseudonyms at these parties, as we didn't want word getting back that we were involved. "Marie Gale," she added when the officer asked for her last name.

"In cases of this kind of assault, the state automatically presses charges against the attacker," the officer stated. "Do you wish to press any additional charges?"

"No, but I know I'm not the first," she replied. "Just the first who got away. He's got a list of all his other 'conquests' as he calls them. It's carved into the wall of the shed. I saw it just before I got out." we all looked, and sure enough, there was a list of twenty-seven names of girls. Some of which had reported being raped to the police, but without evidence, they couldn't prosecute anyone.

"What a dumbass," the other officer said, in regards to the low-life keeping a list. "I'm glad we're catching him, and he'll go away for a long time if he's got twenty-seven counts of rape against him. You did a good job, Marie." He went to put his hand on her shoulder, but she flinched away. He attributed it to her being frazzled after what had almost happened to her.

Later, at home, I asked her about the list.

"I went out there earlier in the night and carved it myself," she said. "I'd heard him going through the list of them in his mind, so I put them on the wall. I even planted the memory in his head that he carved them himself."

"You're definitely my sister," I complimented her. She'd learned so much in the past year. I had to gradually learn about my abilities as time went on, acquiring more and more with each event that took place. But Trixie had all of them dumped into her DNA at once. She had to get used to them, and learn how to control them. She'd done amazingly well.

Trixie PoV

"Ugh," I said as I flopped onto the sofa once we got home from the police station. If I'd known I'd have to retell my story six different times, I'd have just killed the guy instead. Though that would have been going easy on him. From what I'd heard, prisoners didn't take kindly to guys who raped unsuspecting women left and right. So he was going to be getting the rightful punishment.

"Let's not do this crime fighting thing for a while, eh?" I suggested. She readily agreed with me, as she dropped into her chair. We were both mentally exhausted after that night. I was glad we caught the guy and the girls he'd assaulted were getting their justice, but that kind of under cover work wasn't for me. There was too high a risk of someone touching me, and it required a bit too much of a hands on approach. Who knew that the first time I touched a penis, it would be to keep someone from trying to put it where I didn't want it?

I was glad that we were finally back in Minnesota, though. Lukas was beginning to become more of a thorn in my side than anything else. I could tell he wanted more than the physical and exhilarating relationship we had together. I knew he wanted me to love him. He'd told me half a dozen times that he loved me, only not in so many words. He'd tell me he adored me, that I made his world spin, that the sun rose and set on me, and a few other choice phrases. I didn't feel it though. I liked him, sure. He was attractive, fun to be with, and we clicked on a lot of things.

But there was no love there. I couldn't feel it, no matter how hard I tried. It was as if my heart was pulling me in a different direction. Or more like my heart wasn't even there at all, and my body was trying to pull itself towards it, like two magnets. Each time Lukas kissed me, that pull became stronger and stronger, pulling me away from him and towards some unknown thing. And without loving him, I couldn't in good conscious make love with him. I knew he wanted our relationship to go to that next level, but I just couldn't do it. He'd say sex wasn't always about love, which I knew to be true. But for me, I wanted to be in love with the person before I had sex. For all intents and purposes, I was a virgin, and I wanted my first time to be with someone I loved.

Besides, I couldn't stop thinking about the bronze haired man from my dream. I hadn't had the dream since the night Lukas and I first kissed, and the man in the dream told me to be happy. I desperately wanted to see him again. I wanted to see his whole face, not just part of his profile. Even from that, I deduced that he was devastatingly handsome. What I could see of his face was a very angular jaw, strong features, and I'm sure he had perfectly full lips. I never did get a look at his eyes, but I just knew they were beautiful.

His voice was like music pouring out of him and directly into my soul. With those two words he'd both lifted me up higher than I'd ever been, and dropped me to my knees in sorrow. He sounded so sad, like saying those words was the last thing he ever wanted to do. It seemed silly to be dissecting a dream this much, but the whole encounter was surreal. Chasing him night after night only to finally catch up and hear those sad words. I just had to know if it was a dream or if it was real.

Reya had told me once that she could see the future in her dreams. I'd yet to experience that, since I had those dreams of chasing the bronze god nearly every night. Since then, I hadn't been dreaming at all. But maybe these dreams of me chasing this man were what would happen in the future. I know I hadn't met this man, at least not since waking up to this new life, but maybe I would soon?

The next day, the cops came by and let me know that they got a hold of at least seventeen of the girls that Timbo had raped and they all agreed to press charges. He was going away for a very long time. Even longer if they could get in contact with the other ten girls. I made it my mission then to find those girls and convince them with subtle mental hints to go to the authorities.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Warning** Another reference to rape in this chapter. Trixie is beginning to figure out what she's going to do with her endless life. ;)

Edward PoV

Eighteen months have gone by. That's five hundred forty-eight days, nine hours and twenty-three minutes to be exact, since Victoria stole my Bella out of the woods. Even Charlie was beginning to lose hope of ever finding her. Washington State had a law that a missing person could not be declared legally dead until seven years have passed with no evidence of the missing person being found. And to this point, there was no evidence, at least none that the police force could use. My sister could hardly go into the police station and tell them she had a vision of Bella in Peru, or tell them that a crazed vampire kidnapped her, schlepped all the way to South America with her before trying to drain her dry, then finding said vampire's pile of ashes and a puddle of Bella's blood, but no Bella. Yeah, that'd go over great.

As it was, Alice's visions were getting fewer and further between. I was beginning to doubt her; she hadn't been back to visit since she and Jasper left in the attempt to find her. Either she was lying to me, or something much bigger was going on. Or both.

I knew there had to be something, though, as I knew Bella had been in San Francisco, possibly with that man who confronted us. He was Frisco's very own super hero, and the news was abuzz with it. And of course, when one human goes on a crime fighting spree, others do the same in other places. Police forces across the country were urging people to leave the crime fighting to the professionals, as more of these vigilantes were getting hurt than those that were actually doing any good. It appeared that the one in San Francisco was the only one that was truly successful in his endeavors.

Since meeting him though, we had no leads whatsoever. Bella's scent had completely vanished from anywhere in California and the neighboring states. It ended at that house, and we were never able to pick it up again. I was getting desperate, and a desperate vampire is a force to be reckoned with. I wished I could go back in time and catch up with Victoria, kill her myself and bring Bella home. As it turned out, no vampire had the gift to turn back time. If it was possible, I'd have found that individual first.

A couple months ago, we left Forks for Alaska again, under the guise of being too sad to stay. We promised to keep in touch with Chief Swan and the police force in case we found anything about Bella. But it was time for us to move on anyway. The hospital staff was beginning to get suspicious of us, seeing as Carlisle was portraying himself as thirty-five when he didn't look a day over twenty-five.

A shocking turn of events though, was Rosalie's increased worry of Bella's whereabouts. I had thought she didn't give two licks about my love, but she headed up many of the search parties that went out. When I asked her about it she simply said that she'd rather have the human around that have to deal with me wallowing for the next century. Though her thoughts told me otherwise. She felt partly guilty for Bella's disappearance. That perhaps if she'd been more welcoming to her, that Bella wouldn't have run away.

Esme spent most of her time either in her bedroom or in the kitchen. She was mourning Bella's loss as if she lost her own daughter. Carlisle threw himself into his work, working thirty-six hour shifts with only a ten-hour break in-between. Emmett began reading, which wasn't something he did much of before. But he wanted to keep Bella close, so he read her favorite books over and over again. Rosalie either was out looking for Bella, doing online searches for anything that remotely resembled her, or spent the rest of the time in her room, staring at the wall. From what Alice told me, she and Jasper weren't faring much better. Alice missed her best friend terribly, and was very sad about it. Jacob missed his friend, too, and their mutual sadness was affecting Jasper, who brought down the mood even more. That coupled with his own immense guilt over attacking Bella made their home even less desirable to be in than the one I was already in.

Not that I was much better company than anyone else. On the contrary, I sat still at my piano most of the time, and could only be bothered when the Chief called or to go hunting. I hadn't realized what an effect Bella had on this entire family until she wasn't here anymore.

Who knew that in just a few short months a human girl could completely encapsulate everyone in my family in such a way? We all missed her. We all needed her.

Thankfully, Tanya kept her distance from me. She realized what I had lost, and realized that she and I would never happen. All I felt from her was sympathy and support. She'd often go with Rosalie when she was off searching for my love. Eleazer and Carmen tried to pull each of us out of our sadness, but it was no use. Not even the literally electric Kate could rouse us from the doldrums in which we were residing.

The only light I had in my life was gone. Vanished into thin air. I held on hope that she was out there somewhere, that somehow we'd find her. That hope was the only thing that kept me from begging one of the wolves in La Push to kill me.

Trixie PoV

"I think I might change my major," I said one evening at dinner. It was an idea that had been rolling around in my head since that morning.

"What? Why?" Reya asked. "I thought you were liking architecture."

"I do like it, but I was listening to the radio this morning, and they had a segment on rape in the military. It's rampant, Reya. It's almost as if women in the military should come to _expect_ that any or every officer will proposition them for sex, or tell them they won't promote them unless they do it. Don't get me started on the women that are just forced into it by their fellow soldiers and other officers. And when they try to report the crime, they're told to just keep quiet about it! Even when they talk to female officers! It's disgusting and it needs to stop." Reya could tell that I felt quite passionately about this.

"They said that one in four women in the military will be sexually assaulted. And they face a higher risk of being raped multiple times. One said that once other officers heard about it, they started propositioning her. Another left after boot camp, when it happened to her, decided to join the Navy a few years later, only for it to happen again! The 'command's attitude toward rape' is why most victims don't report. They see a chain of command and a military justice system that almost never gets justice for victims, while often allowing perpetrators to stay in the service. It's an epidemic. I have to help; I think this might be what I'm meant to do, Reya. How I'm meant to spend my immortality. Helping these women."

"So, that's a great cause, Trix, but what major would you switch to?"

"I could become a sexual assault lawyer," I answered. "It's a build-your-own major that's coupled with the sexual assault counselor classes."

"Okay, that's a great idea, Trix, but why not finish your architecture degree and then go to school again to pursue that? It's not like we don't have the rest of forever to keep going to college."

"Yes, but this is a problem _now_," I emphasized. "I can always design buildings later. The president just signed that VAWA bill into law. The time for action is now. If it wasn't for the physical I know they require, I'd join the military and face the problem head on."

"Yeah, those military doctors would have a field day with our DNA, and that's only if they could find a needle hard enough to pierce our skin. And I'd wish them good luck wit that," she joked.

With that, I went to the advisors office the next day and told my advisor about my intended change in major. I was a sophomore, so it was still acceptable to make the change. "You've got a four point oh, though, Ms. Summers. And all your architecture professors are raving about you. Are you sure you want to change?" she asked me. When I told her about the radio story I'd heard, she changed her tune. A sad expression came over her face.

"That happened to me and my sister," she confided. "We'd joined the military together, right out of high school. It happened in boot camp, and then again when we were deployed to Afghanistan. We were gang-raped by nearly every man in our unit that night. Horrified, ashamed and feeling unwelcome, we ran away that next morning. We packed our bags and left Germany with no notice. We were both given a dishonorable discharge because we deserted the army and caught the first flight home. Even when we reported what happened, _we_ were the ones that were punished for it. Not the men. Not a single one of them saw even a day in court over it. I think this is a great idea for you, Ms. Summers. Let me call the Social Work department and find out what exactly you'd need to do to finish that major, okay? You should have a lot of the prereqs done from your general classes. I'll email you when I have more information," she promised.

I couldn't believe she just poured her heart out like that. She had been thinking that a four point oh female architecture student that wanted to switch majors was crazy. As soon as I mentioned the news segment I heard, she changed her mind instantly.

Within the week, she emailed me a new class schedule for the next semester, having already promised me seats in each one, and a rubric for which classes I should take the subsequent semesters. With my brain capabilities, I could take on a much heftier course load, which she knew, given my GPA was stellar even with taking twenty- four credits each semester. Most students took only sixteen. "Now remember, there's not a lot of money in this kind of law," she told me. "Not near as much as you'd make as an architect, but from what I'm told, the work can be very rewarding. A lot like teaching."

"I'm not in it for the money," I told her. "Like you said, it can be rewarding in a lot of different ways. If I even help one woman get the justice she deserves, then all my effort will have been worth it."

* * *

It was summer break again, and Reya and I contemplated returning to Frisco to spend the three months with her family, or go somewhere else. I knew that a return to that house would also bring about Lukas' attentions once more, which I was certain I did not want. And avoiding that situation altogether seemed more ideal than dodging his advances at every turn.

He'd called no fewer than three times a week and sent me text messages every day. I tried to be nice about it, but I was reaching the end of my rope. If anything he was making himself less appealing by being so persistent. The man needed to take a hint. No, he needed to take my obvious NO seriously.

Reya and I decided to go to Europe for the summer. She assured me that Lukas would not follow and we'd be sure to have a great time while there. Grabbing our passports and packing lightly, we headed for the airport. We had an itinerary that would bring us to New York, then to London, England. From there, we'd backpack our way through the continent, hitting as many countries and landmarks as possible.

* * *

Rosalie PoV

Sometimes I really hated that I couldn't hide my thoughts from Edward. Alice had gotten so good at it, but mine just poured out of my head like an open book. When we found Bella, I'd have to figure out how she kept him out all the time.

So I felt guilty. Big deal. I knew I wasn't nice to Bella, that I made it no secret that I didn't like her, and thought her presence in our life was dangerous. And look how it turned out! James tried to kill her. Then Jasper tried to eat her and Edward pushed her into a glass table full of glass plates. I almost had to blame Alice for that one. I mean really, anyone who was at the Ballet studio knew that glass and Bella was not a good combination. And finally, Victoria kidnapped her and caused her disappearance! I'm pretty sure I was right all along that it was dangerous, only I never cared about the danger it posed to Bella. Only the danger it posed to our family. And that was what I felt guilty over. That it never occurred to me what our presence in Bella's life meant.

And if she was in Peru, or any South American country, really, I knew what the odds of her getting stuck in human trafficking were. She was a pretty girl with pale skin, and any monster would pay top dollar to have her. That was another reason I was so hell-bent on finding her. If she got caught up in that, it would break her. While I wasn't found in that particular situation, I had been violated in the worst way by one of the men I trusted the most. And I'd die a thousand deaths before I let anything like that happen to Bella.

After Edward, Emmett and Carlisle turned up empty handed when they returned from San Francisco, I put my next plan into place. Bella was smart; she likely got a new ID, a new name, changed her appearance and was in a place that no one would think to look. I felt as though my family wasn't thinking of this situation from her perspective.

Edward considered her a victim of kidnapping, which she certainly was, but we had no idea if she'd escaped on her own, had help, or if something worse had happened, like being sold to the highest bidder. I was trying to consider it from all angles. We believed she wasn't dead, so I ruled that one out. If she escaped on her own, why not come home? Why make us all believe that she was missing or going through hell, when in reality she's perfectly fine. If Victoria did bite her, perhaps she's a vampire now, and has lost her memory like Alice did. That would explain why she hadn't attempted to contact anyone. The only problem with that theory was that the boys had found her scent when they were in San Francisco. It was fresh and it was human, so the vampire theory was out. But that didn't mean that her losing her memory was out.

If she suffered something traumatic, like, oh, I don't know… falling down a mountain head first, being kidnapped by a psychotic ginger vampire, carried to another continent, and was nearly killed. That might trigger some serious amnesia. It was entirely possible and plausible that she didn't remember us after waking up from probably some serious blood transfusions given the size of the puddle of blood Edward found.

I refused to believe that she would just up and disappear on purpose. She loved her parents more than anything. At the very least, she would find a way to let them know she was safe. Charlie and Renee both would call our house about every other day asking for news. It almost became comical. We could time it down to the minute when they would call, like clockwork. Every other day at 5:32pm, Charlie would call. Renee would call earlier, usually between noon and 1pm. They never had any news, and we never had any news. It reminded me of that old Looney Tunes cartoon where the two sheep dogs would trade shifts and say, "Morning Sam… Morning Ralph." Only in our conversations it'd be, "Any news?" And the reply would always be, "Nope, you?" And so on for the past year and a half.

I couldn't imagine what they were going through as parents, especially when Bella was their only kid. I remember how torn up they both were after the James disaster. Of course, they had no idea of what really happened, but they felt as though they both had failed as parents. They felt that way again, now. Thinking they'd done something to drive her away.

Maybe I'd start in San Francisco, and find whatever vigilante crime fighter that the boys ran into. They might not have gotten anything out of him, but I had other methods up my sleeve. Or rather in my shirt. They were called boobs and I knew how to use them.

Author's note: I know Edward gets SUPER emo in this chapter, but I wanted to emphasize the effect Bella's disappearance has on everyone, especially him.

**I'm keeping the next author's note even though it's a bit dated. When I wrote this Chapter, The Violence Against Women Act had just been signed into law, so it was a very relevant topic, and still is today. WE've all seen the posts on facebook about women who are "not asking for it" by wearing revealing or semi-revealing clothing. Rape culture is still huge. A friend of mine is a sexual assault counselor in Minnesota and she helps women every single day with their trauma over this. She's told me stories that the women have told her about what has happened to them and it's absolutely horrific.

Also, the part about the radio segment is true. I heard it on my local NPR station this very morning. It's sad how often it happens in these areas. Not only should women never be forced to, women should never feel pressured to have sex just to go up in rank. In fact, at my job, we have to go through sexual assault/harassment training every year. One of the major points is that one should never have to give sexual favors to get a raise, or a promotion or anything. It's horrible that these women deal with that, and the very officers they would report the crimes to are the ones committing them. I hope that the new Violence Against Women Act will help in the military as well. I read through the comments on the story and a lot of people were posting about how the article didn't discuss what was being done, nor that there are way more people in the military who are active in preventing sexual assault and rape, and do prosecute those that commit the crime than the article suggests. While this may be true, I think that the best way to instigate change is to paint the military in a very unflattering light, and then in an effort to save face, they will act more aggressively, offering more ways for a victim to report the crime, higher penalties for committing said crime, etc.

You can see the article about that, here:

. ?id=174756788.


	9. Chapter 9

**Warning, another rape reference in this story. Again, it doesn't actually happen, but there is another "almost" situation, so be wary if you're sensitive to that subject. Thank you!

Chapter 9

Trixie PoV

Europe was magical. I, of course, didn't remember if I'd ever seen it before, but even if I had, it was even more beautiful the second time. I was thankful I'd taken the time to master so many languages, communication was easy every where we went. And the languages I didn't know, I quickly learned from Reya as she communicated with everyone. My favorite country was Spain. We spent the most time there, followed closely by Italy.

First, we spent a week in London, taking in the sights, imitating cockney accents, and eating lots of fish and chips. It was very cliché of us, but a lot of fun. We moved on to Ireland and Scotland where we were welcomed with open arms by many an Irishman and Scot. Germany was next on our list, and despite my slowly acquired taste for beer, I didn't much care for that country. France was as to be expected… very French, but the cuisine was superb. I ate my weight in gourmet food every day while we were there. We even had a meal while perched atop to Eiffel tower.

Then came Italy, and for some reason we avoided a certain city that was supposed to have some of the most beautiful architecture in the country, called Volterra. Reya wouldn't tell me exactly why we weren't going there, but I figured she had a good reason for keeping it from me, so I didn't press the matter. We swam through the aqueducts underneath Venice; we toured the Vatican and explored Rome. In Florence we met some handsome men who took us dancing beneath the stars. It turned out, as Lukas taught me, that we could more or less hypnotize people to not notice how hard our skin was, or the other inhuman quirks we possessed. That made for a lot of fun nights in every country.

Finally, we reached Spain, starting in the North, just above Portugal, where a dialect called Gallego is spoken. It was similar to Portuguese, kind of like a cross between Castellano and Portuguese, so it didn't take long for us to catch on. And by "take long" I mean a matter of hours. This new brain of mine was fantastic. I would appreciate it even more, I imagine, if I could remember what learning a language was like before.

Another day we spent simply running through the vast plains of southern Spain, climbing the cathedrals and mosques that dotted the cities. It was astonishing to see how two very different religions both had such a strong presence in this country. Across the street from a centuries old mosque where Muslims still congregate to this day was a cathedral built during the reign of "los reyes católicos," Fernando and Isabella who brought Catholicism to this country, and subsequently funded Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World.

I found myself fascinated by the history, culture, and architecture of this place. I still wanted to be an architect, but I felt that I needed to do some work for womankind first, hence my change in major to pre-law. As I was sitting on top of this beautiful church, contemplating my future as a lawyer slash architect, I heard the tell-tale shriek of a woman being attacked.

Leaping from my perch, I landed on the balls of my feet on the cobbled street below. I heard the sounds of the struggle coming from a dark alleyway between two buildings at the end of the row. Listening carefully for anyone that might be looking out their windows as I passed, I dashed down the street and into the alleyway. There I found three young men all wearing jeans, flannel shirts, and camouflage baseball caps tearing the clothing off a Muslim woman. They looked like they fell out of an episode of Duck Dynasty, and I briefly wondered if they were fans of the show. But the time for contemplation was not now; I had to save this woman.

"Little Arab bitch," one man said. His accent was very American, and I knew these guys were a bunch of tourists. What they were doing in this part of Spain, I had no idea. "I'll show you what a man of god feels like," he hissed. His sentence was in complete contradiction to everything his "religion" preached. Though I also knew that according to the bible, the victim of a rapist was required to marry him. I couldn't believe being forced to marry my attacker and live with him for the rest of my life. That seemed like a punishment worse than death. I was thankful that law was no longer in practice, and hadn't been for some time now.

I crept up behind the men silent as the night, and one by one yanked them away by the skin at the back of their necks, letting them all crash into the brick wall behind me and fall unceremoniously into a heap on the ground. "¿Está bién?" I asked the young woman. She was shaking with sobs, unable to respond. I quickly reassembled her clothing, trying my best to cover her completely as I knew she'd prefer. She seemed unable to get up; it looked like the men had beaten her as well as intended to rape her.

Deciding to deal with them later, as they were all unconscious, and likely to be so for the foreseeable future, I picked up the girl, promising her I wouldn't harm her and carried her to the very mosque I had been perched on. The door was locked, but I knew there was at least one person inside. I knocked loudly, nearly putting a dent in the ancient door. A few moments later, I heard footsteps sounding through a marble hallway. Hard-bottom shoes clicked against the stone floor as they hurried to answer my knock. "La mezquita está cerrada," a male voice sounded out, saying the mosque was closed.

"Es una emergencia," I replied, indicating the urgency of my call at this late hour. "Alguna mujer musulmana fue atacada cerca de aquí. Necesito su ayuda, por favor." I hoped he heard me through the thick door as I waited for the ancient locks to click and the hinges to creak open. Finally the huge door did open and there stood a man with a thick beard and a turban on his head. He saw me carrying the woman and gasped loudly.

"¿Qué pasó? He asked me. I told him I heard her screaming from a few doors down and ran to help. I left out the fact that there were three men, and said there was only one. I explained how the woman wouldn't respond to me, but I knew she'd been hurt, and her clothing torn. He called out to someone, and soon, two women dressed similarly to the one in my arms came to the door and asked me to explain everything all over again.

Finally, they let me in, and led me to an area where there was a couch on which I could lay the woman. The man disappeared, as it was improper for him to be present while we examined the injured woman. I removed her head scarf to check for a concussion. She'd been hit in the face quite a few times, but the injuries were only superficial. Though she might have one heck of a scar over her right eye. Lukas would call it a battle-scar, a respectable injury. I agreed on that front, as she did put up a hell of a fight before the three men overpowered her.

I continued to examine her, telling the women I was a nurse, and qualified to assist. They didn't question me, and let me check the woman over. "No aparece que tiene ningún hueso quebrado, solamente varios cortes y magulladuras," I told them as I found no broken bones, but many cuts and bruises. "Recomendo que ella visita al doctor en la mañana si tiene mas problemas. La violación no pasó, pero es posible que va a tener trauma de mente." I wasn't sure of their customs with doctors, but I hoped they'd get the woman the help she needed. I could only do so much. They promised me they'd take her there first thing in the morning, regardless of whether or not she got any worse or complained of any severe pain.

One of the women asked if the man had been able to remove all her clothes. I told her that I'd gotten there before that happened, and that I forcibly removed the man from her and injured him in the process. The other woman smiled slightly, happy that the man had seen at least a little justice. I'd vowed to see to it that they all got the punishment they deserved.

Once the woman came to, she thanked me profusely for what I had done. She said that most would just look the other way, or try to pretend that it wasn't happening. "Especialmente lo que pasa con las musulmanas," she added. Muslim women endured a lot of violence everywhere, I knew. Yet another reason I had to continue with my new studies and career path. I told her my plan and she said the world needed more women like me. "Eres una bendición, que había mandado a mi de Allah en si mismo." She told me I was a blessing sent by Allah himself. I blushed at her words and told her that I did what any person should have done, the right thing.

"Prométame alguna cosa," I asked her. "¿No vayas sola en este barrio, si?" I had her promise me that she would never travel solo in that neighborhood again. I asked the other women to give me the same vow. All three said they agreed, and promised to stay together at all times, especially at night. I bade their leave and made my way back to the mosque's entrance. On my way through the halls, I admired the craftsmanship. Hand carved statues adorned the hall; beautiful tapestries telling stories from the Quran covered the walls.

The man that answered the door, whose name I was not surprised to learn was Mohammed, offered to give me a ride home, as I was as alone and unprotected as the woman I brought to him. I explained that I didn't live far and that I could most assuredly take care of myself. A hard squeeze of his hand when he held his out in thanks proved that point.

Back in the alley, the three men hadn't moved at all from where I'd left them. I picked them up and roused them each, waiting for them to regain full consciousness. "Who the hell are you?" one of them asked. I delved into their minds, and they had no clue who pulled them off the woman. They just knew they were all sitting against this wall, the woman was nowhere in sight, and they were damned sure that I wasn't her.

"You know she doesn't speak English," another one said, sneering at me. "Good lookin, though," he added. He then started thinking about all the things he wanted to do to me. _How did these guys get let into this country?_ I wondered.

"On the contrary," I replied. "I speak English just fine."

"Oh, you're an American! Thank god! We were attacked!" the third one exclaimed, deciding to get out of this as a victim rather than a predator. "Some crazy Arab bitch knocked us all out! We gotta find the cops and get her arrested!" The other two were echoing his words, agreeing wholeheartedly that all they were doing was walking down the street when some "Ay-rab" as they were saying it came up and jumped them. "They all hate Americans, you know that," the third man said, trying to get me on his side.

"Before you continue your tirade, let me explain myself," I began. "Not only did that woman not attack you, _you_ attacked _her_. All three of you. You were tearing her clothes off, beating her with punches and kicks, and intended to rape her." One of them started to refute my words, but I silenced him with a fierce glare. "And the reason I know this is because _I_ am the one that pulled you off of her, threw you against this wall, rescued the woman, brought her to safety, and then came back to deal with you.

"I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. You're each going to tell me your names, and you're going to follow me to the police station down the road where you will not only confess to the crimes you committed, but you will leave this country, and never ever come back," I said in as calm a voice as I could muster, though I was fuming inside. "Or we can do this the hard way, and I'll carry out your punishments myself."

"Like hell," one said. "We're not going anywhere with you. Except to the bedroom. We'll each have our way with you just like we planned with that bitch." He went to stand up, his intent clear, though his face confused when he saw my strong stance. I had no intention of backing down, and he of course, had no clue what I was capable of.

"Take one more step," I hissed, my eyes darkening as I spoke. "I dare you." And of course he did. I summoned up some electrical power from a nearby streetlight and sent the shock of his life at him. I didn't hit him, but I made it look like a lightning bolt shot out of my fingers and right past him. "That was a warning," I told him. His eyes were wide as saucers, fear for his life painted on his face. The other two mirrored his reaction, though they remained seated on the ground.

"What are you?" one asked.

"Your reckoning," I replied. Staring at the trio, I lifted them all off the ground, letting them dangle in the air for a moment before releasing my mental hold on them and letting them all drop back to the ground. As much as my instincts were telling me to just kill them, I had to let them live. The police were the authority to deal with them, not me. My vigilante days weren't behind me, but I never killed a criminal before, and I wasn't about to start. I'd give them a hell of a beating, the just amount for whatever they did to their victims, but then I'd leave an obvious trail for the police to find them, identify them, and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. An anonymous tip via a random pay phone from across town never hurt either.

After I'd dealt their punishment, which included repeating the injuries they left on that poor woman, I went to the police station, told them what I saw, and that the men were tied up in the very alley where they committed the crime. A little compulsion on my part ensured that the officers believed me and would arrest the men. Even if the woman was not there to prove what they did to her, they took my words as proof enough.

Reya had told me once after I came home, worried about fingerprint evidence being found, that we didn't have fingerprints. Upon a close inspection of my hands, I realized her words were true. There were no markings on my fingers or feet to give away my identity at all. They were just smooth and flawless, much like the rest of my body, minus the crescent shaped scars on my wrist from Victoria.

I had no intention of fighting any crime while on vacation, but when opportunities present themselves, I'd have no choice. It was almost as if my body reacted to the situation before my mind even did. When I returned to the hotel room Reya and I shared, I told her what happened. "You're like me," she said. "You're built to automatically react to distress signals, such as a woman screaming. Lukas is built to fight, like a soldier, which is why he doesn't care if the criminals he catches are killed by him. He set that aside for you, but in truth, that's who he is. He's built to fight, to win, where as you and I are built to save lives. You saved that woman's life, saved her from a lifetime of torture from the memories of what almost happened. Sure, you did some ass kicking to get to that point, but the ultimate result was a saved life and not coupled with a trio of deaths."

I liked her explanation. Lukas did on many occasions want to kill the criminals we caught. I could see it in his eyes, but because he was trying to woo me, he held that part of himself back. And maybe that was why we ended things. He wasn't being his true self; he was trying to change himself for me. And while I didn't want him to change, who he was, was a deal-breaker for me.

We only had two weeks left until we had to return to the states to begin the next semester at school. I was reluctant to leave this beautiful place, but I knew we had to go back. In lieu of taking a plane, Reya and I decided to fly back ourselves. It was a bit riskier, but we decided it was worth it. And I wanted to see the pods of whales that would begin migrating north across the ocean.

As promised, half a day into our trek through the air, a hug pod of humpback whales were beneath us, making their way north to the frigid waters of the arctic. They were incredible, huge, graceful animals that glided through the water in perfect harmony with each other. Along a large female was a smaller baby whale, who was working hard to keep up with his mother and the rest of the pod. It was truly a sight to see, and one that I'd look back on with happy thoughts.

All too soon, we were back in the states, heading for Minnesota when I decided I wasn't ready to go back just yet. We still had a few days before classes began, so I told Reya I was going to do a little exploring on my own.

I went south to Florida and spent a day on the beach in Miami, taking in the sun, where I remembered that my skin would never tan. I'd forever be pale as a porcelain doll. Well, not far off, anyway. Then I went to New York, saw a Broadway play, ate some famous New York Deep dish, and then headed to Chicago. From there, I decided I'd swim through the great lakes, go up into Canada and make my way down through the forests along the way.

If I'd known what was going to happen on that adventure, I'd have asked her to come with me. Or not gone at all.


	10. Chapter 10

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for...

* * *

Chapter 10

Emmett PoV

I was out on one of my required hunting trips. I only went when I was told to, much like Edward. This time I asked to go alone, to clear my head and relieve some stress in the only way I knew how that didn't involve a naked Rosalie. I'd gone relatively far south through Canada in my run. It was the only release I felt from the agony that was my day to day existence. And it was only a minute change in the pain. Rosalie was as sad as I was, Edward was a basket case. Esme and Carlisle hardly spoke to each other, least of all anyone else. Alice and Jasper had been gone for over a year, and hardly even called anymore. Our entire life was turned upside down because of my little human sister.

At the top of an outcropping of rock was a mountain lion, sunning herself after a nice meal. Little did she know that I'd soon be sunning myself on the same rock, after making a meal of her. I climbed up the cliff face silently, knowing that even the tiniest sound would put her on the red alert. Normally I'd do just that, so that I could give chase. Today though, I did not feel like going through that effort. I wanted a quick easy meal, then I'd lay in the sun for a spell and head back to the house in Alaska.

I dare not refer to it as home. It didn't feel like home. Not without Bella. Before I could let my sad thoughts ruin my meal, I pounced on the cat, wrestling her on to her back and sunk my teeth into her neck. She clawed uselessly at my chest, tearing my shirt, but gave no real challenge to me. Not even my inner monster could be bothered to care. He was mourning as much as I was.

As I was finishing her up, sucking the last few succulent drops out of her, I heard a loud crash in the woods near my perch. It sounded like a meteor had fallen through the sky and landed not a mile from where I was. I dropped the lion's carcass unceremoniously at my feet and went to investigate the weird sound I heard.

As I approached, I heard rustling, tearing of fabric, and cursing. Wait. Cursing? "Stupid bird… Feathers… Of all the space in the entire sky… not bloody paying attention," I was only getting snippets of the words coming from this person's mouth. They didn't make any sense. In between all the choppy phrases was the sound of spitting something out of one's mouth. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this person was spitting feathers out.

Perhaps a human was out on one of those hang-gliders and hit a bird, causing them to crash. I didn't detect the smell of blood, so they didn't appear to be injured. I was about to make my leave, so as not to be seen in the sun, when a very potent and enticing aroma hit my nose. I hadn't smelled it from its source in nearly two years, and here it was, mere meters away from me. The inner monster roared to life and demanded that I take merely a sample of it.

Yet the more rational part of me knew why I couldn't. That delectable smell belonged to the one person in the whole world that I'd yearned to see again. My little sister. Bella's blood was super potent to anyone, just especially to Edward. I had to admit, I'd had thoughts of killing her myself once or twice before I got to know her.

I crept through the trees, my mind not believing my nose, but I couldn't deny the evidence. There in a newly made clearing of trees, in the middle of a newly made crater stood a woman. She had short hair, almost as short as Alice's, and it was an unnatural burgundy color. She spat feathers out of her mouth and picked them out of her hair. Brushing the dirt from the crater off of her she turned enough so I could see her face.

"Bella!" I yelled recognizing that heart shaped face and those chocolate brown eyes anywhere. She jumped at my voice and turned to stare at me. There was no recognition on her face whatsoever. Before I could say another word, she bolted in the opposite direction. "Bella, wait!" I yelled after her, but it was no use. I ran after her, following her scent through the woods.

It wasn't until I'd been running for a few miles when I realized she was running much too fast. Way faster than a human, and faster than a few vampires I knew. How was that possible? And why didn't she seem to recognize me? I was closing in fast; she was slowing down, though I couldn't figure out why. I very nearly ran into her if I hadn't seen her stop a few seconds earlier. "Why are you chasing me?" she hissed.

"Because you ran away from me, sis!" I yelled back.

"Sis? Sis? Who's sis?" she asked as if sis was a name.

"You're my sister!" I exclaimed. "We've been combing the planet for you for almost two years. Where have you been?"

"Wait, you're my… I have a brother?" she asked, looking away from me, completely stunned.

"In a manner of speaking yeah, I always considered you my little sister, and you thought of me as your big bro. You don't remember me? Your big brother Emmett?" I asked.

"No, I don't remember anything," she replied. "Not even my name." I saw her standing on the balls of her feet as if she was ready to bolt at a moment's notice. I had to keep her there. I had to get her to come back to Alaska with me.

"Bella was your name. Isabella Marie Swan," I told her. She flinched, but didn't seem to find it familiar. "What happened to you?" I asked myself, but said it loud enough for her to hear, too.

"It's a very long story, but let me ask you something first," she replied. I nodded for her to continue. "Why don't you have a heartbeat?"

I took a deep breath before responding. "Because I'm a vampire."

Her eyes went wide. She took a hesitant step towards me, seeming to sniff the air between us. I slowly held up my hand, in a friendly gesture. She stared at my hand as if it was an alien, but still approached me cautiously. Extending one finger out, she touched it to my palm. "Huh," she breathed. "Ice cold, and rock hard, no heartbeat, almost as fast as me. Why is your shirt all torn and bloody? Did you get hurt?"

"No, I was um, hunting," I replied.

"But not for humans," she stated matter-of-factly. "Because your eyes aren't red. If they were, I might have had to kill you." My eyebrows shot up. "Not because I wanted to, but it's a compulsion that I have to deal with. At least I think I do. You're the first vampire I've seen. But, that's not important right now. What is important is that you tell me exactly what happened that led up to me being with Victoria in Peru. I don't remember that, but it's all I do know about my life before."

"Bella," I started, but she cut me off.

"Trixie. My name is Trixie now." I nodded and asked that she come with me to see the family. And that together, we'd be more than happy to explain absolutely everything that we know. "And then I'll explain what I know, and what's happened since then," she promised. "I'm sure you're more than curious about, well everything." I nodded enthusiastically, smiling.

She gave a small smile back. "I can see why I might have liked you. Okay, big brother Emmett, lead the way." She pointed in a northerly direction, which was exactly where we were headed.

"Okay, Lil' Trix," I replied. "It's a long way though. Do you need to stop and rest or eat or anything?" I asked. She simply smirked and shook her head. Whatever happened to her, she wasn't human anymore. That much I was sure of.

Trixie PoV

Emmett was a mammoth of a man. Huge all over. His arms were monstrous, his shoulders were broad as a redwood, and he was at least six-foot-six. On top of all that he was a vampire. But I couldn't find it in me to be afraid of him. His shirt was torn and bloody, his teeth were razor sharp, and his eyes resembled a bird of prey's more closely than a human's, yet he gave off this cuddly teddy-bear vibe. Reya said to always trust my instincts with people, and he gave me no reason nor instinct to fear him. Besides, he called me Bella, so he must have known me before. He even used my full name. Perhaps this behemoth of a vampire was the key to unlocking the past that I now so desperately needed to find.

I followed him through the forests, up the mountains and down the other sides, until we reached Alaska. On the way, he told me stories about various hunting trips he'd taken through these lands and described them in great, gory detail. Despite having no desire whatsoever to kill an animal, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea, and I wanted to witness him hunt one down. "Oh no, little sis, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?" I asked him, choosing to ignore him calling me sis. I didn't yet know him as a brother, so I wasn't quite comfortable with that endearment, but I let it slide that one time.

"Because, if I lost control, the first thing I'd smell is you. And I liked having you around before, I've missed you like crazy, and I'm not about to put you in danger again." I understood where he was coming from, but I had to roll my eyes. Deciding to leave it for a later conversation, I acquiesced and we continued our journey to the Denali Wilderness he called home.

I can't say I expected to see a log mansion nestled against the forest, when we arrived. I thought there'd be a bunch of shabby tents or shacks that they used to shield themselves from the elements, but not an entire house. It looked like humans lived here, not these mythological creatures that belonged in crypts, coffins, and caves. Oh my.

He sniffed the air when we arrived. "Guess everyone's out hunting or something. That's perfect. I want to surprise them. Here, climb on my back and I'll climb up to that window. Is that alright?" He asked. I smirked at him, jumped up, grabbed the window sill, slid the window open and swung into the room. I peeked back out at him, only to see him slack-jawed and wide eyed.

After a moment, he shook his head and entered the room. He asked me to stay in this room and be as quiet as possible. Little did he know that I could even make it so my heartbeat was nearly silent. I was enjoying playing this game with him. It wasn't like outing myself to a human. He was just as concerned with humans finding out what he was as I was. I had no reason to not trust that he'd keep my secrets.

An hour later, I heard fast feet running through the forest. And a lot of them at that. From what I could tell, there were nine separate pairs. They were coming from all different directions.

"Emmett!" one of them yelled. "I know you're upset, but do you have to be singing that song in your head?" I held back a gasp. Reya had told me about gifted vampires, but one of them was a mind reader? Fascinating. His voice seemed familiar too, yet I couldn't quite place it.

"I have my reasons, Ed. Shut your face," Emmett replied. I swallowed my chuckle and kept silent in this room. "Everyone in the house now, I have an announcement." Within seconds, they all entered the house from various doors, and convened in the living room with Emmett. "Out on my hunt today, I came across something very odd, but also very awesome. I put it in my room, and I think we should all go up and have a look at it."

"Em, what is it? I'm not in the mood for your games, today," A tinkling soprano voice said. All of them had such beautiful voices.

"I promise, Rosie. You'll like this one. A lot." He led them up the stairs and paused outside the room. "Everyone close your eyes and hold your breaths," he requested. Many of them complained, but eventually must have done as he asked because he opened the door. One by one, they all filed into the room.

They were all breathtakingly beautiful, like they just stepped off one of the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. The last one to enter had that same shade of bronze hair as the man from my dreams had. I hadn't had that dream since he told me to be happy, but now I had to wonder if the man that belonged to that voice and hair wasn't standing in front of me at that very moment. Then it hit me, if his voice was the one that complained about Emmett's thoughts, it had to be him. That was the voice from my dream. Without a doubt. Emmett called him Ed. Was that his name?

Emmett glanced at me for the all clear, and I gave him one stiff nod. "Okay, everyone. Open your eyes." Instantly all nine of them gasped simultaneously.

"Bella?" many of them asked. The one on the end, with the bronze hair collapsed to his knees, denting the floor. My instinct was to run to him, to make sure he was okay, but I stayed rooted to my spot.

"Bella, is that you?" A caramel haired woman asked. Her whole demeanor screamed Mother to me, and I wondered if that's what she was to me.

"I think so," I replied. "I go by Trixie now. I um, don't remember anything or anyone." The look on everyone's face told me they wanted me to continue. "When I woke up, I was different. I had no memory of anything, not even my name. The only clue I had was the name 'Bella' written on the tongue of my shoes. Emmett says I'm his little sister, and that you all are my family. I want to believe that, but I can't remember anything at all." As I said those words, the man on the end began shaking with silent sobs.

"I'm going to call Alice," Emmett said, leaving the room. Leaving me with the nine unfamiliar faces that were looking at me as if I were a ghost.

"You cut your hair," a blonde woman said. She was easily the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. The other three blondes that stood near her were also stunning, but she obviously took the cake.

"Yeah, I did. Um should we go to a place where we can sit down and talk or something? It's kind of awkward having this reunion-type-thing in a bedroom," I suggested.

"Of course!" The other brunette in the room declared. I noticed a hint of a Hispanic accent in her voice. And her skin wasn't quite as pale as the others. The same as the man at her side. They appeared to be together. "We never met before, but my name is Carmen," she said, introducing herself. I smiled and gestured for her to lead the way down the stairs to the main room.

The house was beautiful, very rustic and cozy. I wanted to stop and look at everything, as I could tell each piece was specifically picked for its exact place in that house. My inner architect and designer wanted to dissect it all and know everything's origin and meaning. But it was not the time for that. They had the answers I was looking for.

"I'll tell you what I know," I began as I sat down. I realized the bronze haired man was the last one down the stairs, and he stood off to the back. As I looked at him, his expression told me he was holding himself back from something. That made me all the more curious about him.

"I woke up in a strange room, without a clue of where I was. A young woman entered the room and asked me my name. When I couldn't give her an answer, when I couldn't tell her anything about myself, we learned that I was suffering from amnesia," I began. I went on with describing what I was and that the fact that I was immortal was why I decided not to try and find my family. I waited as they all had their various reactions to my story, and promised to answer any and all questions when I was done. Eventually, they quieted down. "I agreed with Reya when she told me that in a few years, I'd have to leave everyone and everything I knew, never to look back. Had I known that my family was already comprised of immortals, I would have chosen differently. I'm sorry for that." I looked down.

"You have nothing to apologize for, dear," the caramel haired woman said. "We're just so glad you're safe, and that you're here. We want you to stay, of course. But only if you want to."

"I'd like that," I replied. "I just realized, I've been calling you the caramel haired woman in my head. I don't know anyone's name apart from Emmett and Carmen." She introduced herself as Esme, and her husband as Carlisle. They were the patriarchs of the Cullen family, which also included the beautiful blonde, Rosalie. She was Emmett's mate, Alice and Jasper, who were currently away, searching for me apparently, and Edward. The bronze haired one who hadn't uttered a sound since he fell to his knees earlier.

The other coven was known as the Denali clan. They were Eleazer and Carmen, a mated pair; Kate; Tanya; and Irina, three sisters. All of them shared the same diet of animal blood only, which was why their eyes were golden instead of red. "It's lovely to meet you all," I said. As those words came out of my mouth, what sounded like a strangled cry came from Edward's lips.

"Edward," I stated. "Why don't you come over here?" I asked. He was warring between staying put and sitting in the open seat next to me. "I'm not going to bite you. Come sit." Emmett chuckled at my words, and then I realized the irony of it. "And none of you will be able to hurt me, either, so don't worry about any of that." Very slowly, he made his way across the room and sat on the love seat next to me, mere inches away from me. It seemed like he was holding so much tension in his body that he was about to explode. As he sat, I felt an electric current stirring between us. It was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. I wasn't entirely certain that I wouldn't shock the hell out of him if I touched him.

"Trixie," Carlisle said, using the name I'd told them I used now. "I listened to your every word regarding your immortality, but I must say, I'm having a hard time grasping the concept."

"I know what you mean. I felt the same way when I first was told about it," I replied. "I'd be more than happy to give you a demonstration, but first, I must ask, that you tell me what I don't know about myself. Please," I requested.

"Don't you dare start without me!" a sprite-like voice sounded from behind me. In the next moment an inky-haired pixie of a girl bounced into the room and threw herself into my lap. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and squeezed me tight. If I'd been human, it would have broken my bones. "I can't believe I didn't see this!" she yelled. "You've had me on a wild goose chase for over a year, missy!"

"Um, I'm sorry?" I asked, rather than stated. "I'm Trixie, by the way." Along with this girl entered a tall blonde man and a gigantic russet skinned native man. He didn't fit in with this group at all. He stood out like a sore thumb, and I was more than curious as to his involvement in it.

She giggled. "I'm Alice." She told me that we were best friends and that she'd been searching for me non-stop since I disappeared.

"Okay, so I did disappear," I said. "I didn't know if I'd run away or what."

"Yes, shall we begin with what we know of you before?" Carlisle asked. I nodded.

"Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start," Alice began singing. Her voice calmed much of the tension in the room, and we all relaxed. "You moved to Forks, Washington in the middle of your Junior year of High school. You told Edward that you decided to spend some time with your dad while your mom traveled with her new husband. He was a minor league baseball player, and had to travel a lot. Your mom stayed with you, but you could tell that she missed him, so you did the selfless thing and sent yourself to your dad's house.

"Then you met Edward. I don't know how I didn't see it coming, but he almost killed you," she continued. "Your scent called to him like no other, and it took every ounce of his self control to keep himself from doing the forbidden. Eventually he got control of his thirst and began to get to know you. We all did. You became a fixture in our family. We shared a lot of happy times, and some not so happy ones." She told me about a vampire named James who got fixated on me and chased me all the way to Phoenix where he bit me and tried to kill me.

"Oh, I thought this scar was from Victoria," I said.

"Do you have any other scars like that?" Jasper asked, speaking for the first time. I shook my head. "Then she must have bitten you right on top of where James did, leaving you with just the one set of scars still." That made sense. I thanked him for explaining. As I did so, I notice his neck and collar bone were littered with scars like mine. At my curious expression, he promised to explain later.

Alice continued her Bella-biography and brought up my eighteenth birthday. Otherwise known as the epic disaster that tore apart the family. "We made a decision to leave Forks, leaving you behind, as our world was far too dangerous for you." I had a question or nine at that statement, but I kept quiet. "When Edward broke the news to you, you didn't take it very well and went chasing after him through the forest. Being human, though, you couldn't keep up, of course. And from there, you fell down a steep hill into a ravine, and that was where Victoria found you. She wanted to kill you because we killed James. She felt that because we killed her mate, that it was only fair that she kill you."

"Why? Am I… am I someone's mate?" I asked. My mind immediately went to Edward, as did everyone's eyes. I looked over at him, and he had a tortured expression. "Were we together?" I whispered.

After a pregnant pause, he replied. "Yes." He looked down and resituated himself on the sofa to face me. When he looked up, he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "If I hadn't left you in the woods. If I hadn't broken up with you, none of this would have happened."

"Edward you can't blame yourself for not wanting to be with me anymore. Relationships come and go all the time," I explained. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to place my hand over his, but I kept them in my lap.

"That wasn't it, Bel-Trixie," he replied. I had a feeling people were going to be calling me Bel-Trixie for a while. "I didn't want to leave you. I did it because I thought it was best for you. I thought that our presence in your life was putting you in constant danger, which it was. But my decision was to remove that danger from your life, so that you could live a normal human life, like you were supposed to."

"Well, funny how that worked out, eh?" I joked. He didn't laugh. No one laughed. "Okay, I understand though. I mean, I told you that I decided to not pursue my past because of what I am now. It would have been dangerous for anyone. Especially when I was not in control of all my abilities. I could have as easily set someone on fire as shake their hand, while breaking all the bones in said hand. I get the danger part."

Edward gave me a half-hearted smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Trixie, I am so sorry," he said, beginning to cry. "It may take a while, but I hope to someday earn your forgiveness."

"Edward, there's nothing to forgive as far as I'm concerned," I replied. He looked at me as if I sprouted a third eye. "Listen. If I was still human, and it took this long to find each other, then I'd probably be a little pissed. I can picture myself being completely destroyed by the loss of you, then being angry that you were so arrogant and egotistical to think that I'd be better off without you, that I'd move on. But as it stands, I'm just as dangerous if not more so than you are.

"My human mind would not have been able to understand your reasons. But I do now. Does that make sense?" He nodded quietly, but seemed unconvinced. I took the initiative to reach across our laps and grasp his hand. "See? I'm as strong as you, my skin is as hard. Vampire teeth can't break my skin now. I'm not in danger from you anymore, do you understand?" He grabbed my hand in his and pulled me into his arms.

"I'm so sorry Bella," he cried. "I've missed you so much. I'm not complete without you."

"Whoa, there cowboy," I replied. "I understand that we were together. I can feel that we have a connection with each other. It's so strong, it's electric. But I don't remember you. I have a feeling you're going to say something like, 'Let's pick up where we left off,' but we can't. We have to start over. I'm not the same person you knew before. That isn't even my name now. You need to get to know me as Trixie, and I need to get to know you all over again. The good thing is, I'm all for this plan."

* * *

Well, what did you think of the reunion? I couldn't have Trixie let Edward off the hook, and pick up where they left off like at the end of New Moon. It always bugged me how quickly Bella took him back and was still so insecure about his love for her for a while. Edward got off way too easy. In this story, she's making them start all over. Which for her, it's like a brand new relationship anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Edward PoV

When I entered Emmett's bedroom, the last thing I expected was to see Bella standing there. I thought he was going to show us his latest tantric sex purchase, as that's what was going through his mind, along with that blasted song. As soon as my eyes made contact with hers, I fell to my knees. Relief and anguish rushing through me in waves. After two years of searching, of worrying, of being without the other half to my soul, there she was.

Words were being exchanged, but I wasn't paying attention. It wasn't until we were downstairs and she said it was lovely to meet us all that I came out of my disbelief. The woman I had been searching for, for two years was sitting not 10 feet away from me, and didn't remember me. I couldn't decide it if was a good or a bad thing.

She started talking about being immortal, that she went through some kind of transition that made her inhuman, but not a vampire. She said everything so matter-of-factly; it was hard to not believe her. But then she allegedly ran here from southern Canada. Emmett said she gave him a run for his money when he had to chase her.

I definitely couldn't believe her when she said she forgave me. How could she forgive the blackest kind of blasphemy? How could she forgive what she didn't even remember? But then, the only important thing was that she said she wanted to start over. Despite not remembering me, she felt a connection. I sat there with her in my arms for what felt like only a few minutes, but was closer to an hour.

Abruptly, she pulled away from me. "I've got to call my sister!" she exclaimed. "Do you have a phone I can use?" I nodded and handed her my cell phone. She quickly punched in the number and waited for her sister to answer. She must refer to the woman that changed her as a sister. "Reya, hey, it's Trix." Her new name was going to take some getting used to. "I'm um… in Alaska. It's a long story, but it has a happy ending…. Would you do that? … yeah, that'd be great. Just follow my trail from…. Yeah, perfect. See you soon!"

"What was that about?" I asked. I was surprised that I couldn't hear the other end of the conversation. Bella's mind was still silent to me, so I couldn't hear it through her thoughts either.

"Oh, Reya is coming up here. I hope that's okay. I didn't even think to ask," she replied. I told her that Reya was more than welcome. "Oh, good. Thank you. Yeah, she's going to withdraw us both from our classes and head up here right away."

"Classes? Are you in college?" Esme asked. Bella, er Trixie, nodded. "What are you taking?"

"Well, I was studying architecture with a minor in interior design, but then I changed my mind. I switched majors to Pre-law. I'm going to be a sexual assault attorney." This piqued Rosalie's attention.

"Why did you choose that?" Rosalie asked.

"I heard a radio news story about the sexual assault that happens to women in the military, and I experienced the severity of it on campus first hand, and when I was in Spain this summer. These women need someone on their side. Someone who will fight to the death for the justice they deserve. And I'd like to be that person."

"When you say experienced first hand…" I began.

"Oh! No! Not that. No, I haven't been… no," she replied, assuring me. "That isn't even physically possible with a human. I knew of a guy who would get girls drunk, put rohypnol in their last drink and then lure them out to his shed behind the fraternity house. In there he'd rape them, then put their clothes back on, carry them to back to the house and place them on the couch. Many women were none the wiser, having no clue what happened to them. Others, specifically the virgins knew exactly what happened, but had no idea who'd done it, since he used a condom and they couldn't remember.

"I had to put a stop to it, so I went to one of his parties, got his attention, drank the drinks he gave me, and let him bring me out to the shed. Then I kicked his ass, carved a list of all the names of the women he'd assaulted and called the cops. He'll be in jail for quite a while, I imagine. Then, when Reya and I were in Spain this summer, I encountered a young woman who was about to be gang-raped by three men. I stopped that before it went too far, too."

"That's dangerous, Trixie. You shouldn't put yourself at risk. What if you drank too much to know what you were doing? Or what if those men decided to turn their attentions to you?" I asked.

"Is this normal for him?" Trixie asked, looking away from me and asking the others. "Does he put me in a crystal vase on a high pedestal so nothing can get me?" Everyone nodded at the same time. "Okay, Edward, that has to stop. Clearly you didn't get it when I said I couldn't be hurt. Let's go outside and I'll show you all some stuff."

"Yes!" Emmett hollered. Clearly he was excited about it.

We all followed her out the door and into the backyard. "Do you think it's a bit cold?" she asked, shivering for added effect. I shrugged. She smirked and looked past me. When I followed her gaze, I saw she was staring at the wood pile that was arranged along the back side of the house. I went to go get some wood, but her hand on my shoulder stopped me. I tried not to lean into her touch, letting the electric current between us sink down into my empty soul. But then, before my eyes, several logs were hovering above the pile and flew through the air to the fire pit next to Trixie's feet, where they were arranged into a teepee style. I stared at the logs for a long minute trying to wrap my head around what I just saw.

She cleared her throat and got my attention again. She held out her arm, her palm facing up, but closed in a fist. I looked into her eyes and could hardly believe what I saw. Her eyes were changing color. From the dark brown I knew and loved to the golden tones of a vegetarian vampire and finally to a burning crimson-red, like a newborn. In the next instant, she opened her hand, and it was engulfed in flames!

I jumped back in surprise, but kept my eyes on hers. She smirked again and held her arm towards the teepee of logs in the fire pit. She blew the fire towards the pit as if blowing a kiss, and the logs were instantly ablaze. "There, that's better, don't you think?"

"I… what… how… what?!" I stammered. Carlisle was repeating two words in his mind like a litany. Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis. Everyone else's minds were blank, completely in shock.

"Did any of you wonder why you didn't smell my scent when you came in the house? That's because I didn't enter through any of the doors," Trixie continued. She turned towards the house, bent down and launched herself off the ground, landing quietly on the roof a good forty feet above us. She then held her hand out in the air as if testing the wind. With her eyes closed in concentration, she lifted herself off the roof and began flying around the house.

Yes, she was _flying_ around the house. She'd zoom way down low, almost hitting the ground then zip back up at least a hundred feet above us. After a minute or two she landed right back where she'd been standing next to the fire pit. I was motionless with shock. "Don't you think that tree would look better over there?" she asked pointing at a huge fir tree just where the forest began at the back of the yard, and to an empty space at the other end of the yard.

She was next to the tree in a blink of an eye, running possibly faster than me to get there. Grabbing hold of the tree, she uprooted it, and carried it over one shoulder to the new spot she mentioned. She dug a hole in the ground with her bare hands, and re-planted the tree. She wiped her hands together and then ran back to my side. The whole thing took less than half a minute.

"Satisfied? Or do you need more?" she asked.

"There's more?" Emmett and Carlisle chorused. Trixie merely giggled in response.

"Did I overwhelm you?" she asked me quietly. I stood there silent for a moment before giving her a weak nod. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to show you that I'm not a fragile, weak human anymore. And even if I was, I wouldn't want to be treated like I'm made of glass. Yes, I know in comparison, humans are as fragile as glass, but that doesn't mean they want to be treated like that. I don't know if I ever complained about it as a human, but I certainly will now."

"It's just a lot to take in," I replied. "The last time I saw you, you were healing from being thrown into a glass table with glass plates on it after you got a paper cut from opening a birthday present. And now, you're able to create fire in your hands, can fly, are super strong and fast, and have telekinesis. So I guess I'm just a bit out of my depth, here."

"Yeah, I guess I did kind of throw a lot at you, huh?" She linked her arm in mine and led me away from the house and into the forest. "Let's chat," she said, sitting on a downed tree. That she just kicked over with her foot. It was dying and very weak, but still. Damn.

"What would you like to chat about?" I asked. She sat silently for a moment, a million questions passing through her eyes.

"Vampires mate for life, right?" she asked. I nodded. "And you mated with me?"

"Well, I believe we are mates," I replied, wondering if she caught on to my use of the present tense. "Though we never completed the mating bond, because you were human."

"And by mating bond, you mean sex?" She asked. Did she have to put it so bluntly. I nodded my reply. "Is it because you were afraid to hurt me?"

"Yes, that and we weren't married," I replied. She laughed. Then she laughed some more. Five minutes later, she was still laughing. It was the most glorious sound in the world, but I had no idea why she was laughing. "What is so funny?" I finally asked after she quieted down some.

"You have to be the only male on this _planet_ who wants to wait for marriage. Except for über religious people, I suppose. Jeez, Edward, archaic much?"

"I… well… I mean…" I didn't have a good enough response. "I guess you make a good point." I decided in that very moment that I would do away with my Victorian morals. If she wanted me to take her against this very log, at this very moment, I wouldn't hesitate.

"In other news, I don't suppose you all keep any food in the house, do you? I'm starved. I haven't eaten since a few hours before Emmett found me."

"You eat food?" I asked. She nodded and smiled, telling me she also slept and used the bathroom. "So you're still pretty much human, just more durable?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she replied. "And immortal. I'll be this age forever." That was possibly the best news I heard all day. Well, aside from her sudden arrival, it was the best news. If she was still human, then that meant she still had her soul. And I couldn't damn her by making her a vampire. Yet, she'd still be able to be with me forever, and I wouldn't outlive her. That is, if she wanted that, of course.

As it happened, Tanya and her sisters had recently had some human visitors and there was still food stocked in the kitchen. The rest of us had made ourselves scarce while they had their fun that weekend. We arrived back in the house and Esme asked Trixie what she would like. Trixie paused for a moment. "Wait, you… are you offering to cook for me?" she asked. Esme smiled and nodded, telling her she used to do it for her all the time. "Wow, thank you. Um…" she pondered, looking at the contents in the refrigerator and pantry. "Steak and Potatoes?" she asked. "Rare," she added, which got a chuckle from Emmett.

"Hey, Lil' Trix," Emmett said, using a new nickname for Trixie. "Now that I know you can fly, which is effing awesome by the way, is that what you were doing when I found you?" he asked.

"Yes, well, you found me after I crash landed and made that crater," she answered. I gawped at her. "I wasn't hurt," she assured me, "but the bird that ran into me did not survive." Everyone filed into the kitchen, suddenly interested in this story. "I was flying around, as it had just rained and the wetter the air, the easier to fly… I'll explain the science later. And I was looking down at the landscape below, appreciating the beauty, when this random goose, which had lost its flock ran into me head on. I don't know what he thought I was, but I certainly wasn't open air. I was so disoriented that I lost my concentration and fell from the sky, landing in that forest. The bird's feathers were all over me, and I was in the process of spitting them out and getting them out of my hair when Emmett called out to me."

"And then she effing ran away from me!" Emmett added. "I just realized who she was, then she ran, and I was all, 'how the hell is she running so fast?' and 'holy shit! That's Bella!' She didn't even give me a second to say anything. She just bolted. Why did you run?" he asked.

"Well, at first, I thought I'd just given myself away to a human, and I panicked. But as I was running, I was listening to you behind me, and I realized you didn't have a heartbeat, and were running much too fast to be able to keep up with me. So I slowed down to figure it out. Plus, you called me Bella. And that's when it dawned on me that you must have known me before. Or maybe recognized me from the news casts. So I stopped to get the answers to those questions."

"Am I in time for dinner?" a strange female voice called out from the other side of the door. Eleazer went to get it, greeting the young woman as she entered the room. This was Reya evidently. "Hello everyone! I'm Trixie's sister, Reya. And I'm sure you all have a million questions."

"Where did you come from?" Emmett asked, though I doubt he realized his question had multiple interpretations.

"Well firstly, a genetic research company called Zenexis," she answered, smirking. "And more recently, Minneapolis, Minnesota."

"Trixie just called you two hours ago," I said. "Wait, how fast did you get here?" I asked Emmett and Trixie.

"Well, I was following him, so it took longer than it would have on my own. It took all day. He's a slow-poke, and we are fast. Very fast. Plus, we can always fly if we want, which cuts down the time even more."

"About the flying," Carlisle chimed in. "I'm Carlisle by the way," he said to Reya. "I'm trying to wrap my head around the science behind that. You said it wasn't the telekinesis, and you'd explain it, Bel-Trixie?"

"Oh yes, I did. It's not flying, per-se," Trixie answered. "It's more like molecular manipulation. We reverse the polarity of the water molecules in our bodies with the ones in the air, making us airborne. The more water in the air, the easier it is to fly. Canada, while chilly right now is remarkably humid, so it's rather easy for us to stay airborne for long periods of time, and we can fly as fast as we run. In essence, we can cross an ocean about three times faster than a jet."

I stared at her dumbfounded. How is it possible that the clumsy, self-conscious, shy girl that I knew and loved two years ago has transformed into this… super hero? That was the only word I could think of to describe her. A super hero. She was like the culmination of all Emmett's favorite X-Men characters, with a few others thrown in the mix.

"We're made to kill vampires," Reya told us while she and Trixie scarfed down the three 22oz steaks and six pounds of potatoes that Esme cooked. Esme still had issues with understanding portion control, but apparently that didn't matter, as these girls ate the entire spread. I wondered briefly where Jacob ran off to, as he wasn't one to miss a meal from what I recalled. "Well, at least that's what Zenexis intended for us to be. They began with collecting DNA from 'prime human donors,' treating them more like the winning cattle from a state fair than actual human beings, and combined their DNA to create the ideal combination of traits. I look the way I do on purpose; they wanted a being that was evolutionarily perfect and appealing to the eye, much like a vampire. Then they tested the capacities of human brain function. There was a theory that the longer a fetus is in the womb, the more the brain will develop. I was in the womb for sixteen years. Though it wasn't a human woman that carried me, it was a man-made gestation tank. They kept me in there for sixteen years, where I was then released and chase down like a hound while they tested my limits, my abilities, and the auto-evolution gene they created."

"Auto-evolution gene?" Carlisle asked.

"It's pretty much a literal take on 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I wasn't 'born' with bulletproof skin, or the ability to create fire, or manipulate electricity, or breathe under water, etc. I had enhanced abilities such as telekinesis, telepathy, strength and speed, and the ability to heal rapidly from any wounds," Reya began.

"Spontaneous Regeneration," Emmett interjects. "Like Wolverine, right?"

"Exactly, minus the retractable bone-claws," Reya replied, placating Emmett's comic book hero obsession. "That last ability coupled with the auto-evolution gene is what enabled me to survive and adapt to everything they threw at me. They tried to drown me, and my DNA adapted to be able to breathe under water; they tried to set me on fire, now I can create flames in my hands and don't burn, you see the pattern. I'd heal instantly after the attack, coming back to life after having been drowned, for example. Then the next 24 hours were complete torture. Every cell in my body would change to adapt to the new ability. I've heard the transformation into vampirism is very painful, like being flayed alive and set to burn atop the surface of the sun. It's about like that I'd imagine. I literally try to claw my way out of my skin. Whatever room I'm in when it begins suffers my wrath and it looks like I let a wild animal loose in there. The furniture is destroyed, my clothing is shredded, and there are claw marks on the walls. It's always an effort to fix a room after a transformation. Especially the one after a vampire bit me. That had to be the worst one yet."

"You've been bitten?" Eleazer asked. Reya nodded and pulled the neck of her shirt down, revealing her collar bone and a crescent shaped scar there. She then pushed up her sleeve to show a matching on the inside of her wrist; almost in the exact same place as Trixie's.

"I was in a small town, working in a call center. There was a coven there that was like you, with golden eyes. I guess I smelled too good to two of them and they attacked me one night on my front lawn. I'm sure they thought I was dead, but when they came back to clean up their mess, my body was gone. I picked up everything and moved. Haven't seen either of them since. Though I'd like to, just to scare the crap out of them," she joked.

"You weren't mad that they tried to kill you?" Jasper asked.

"No," Reya replied. "It wasn't their fault that my blood was so irresistible. I could hear them warring with it in their thoughts, but they couldn't fight the instincts. I'm an instinctual creature myself; I can't fault another one for that. Besides, they enabled me to be immune to venom and make my skin impenetrable to vampire teeth, so I really should find them and thank them." All of us stared at her as if she'd grown a second head.

"Continuing on," Reya said, ignoring our reactions. "When I found Trixie, she'd been almost drained dry by Victoria. I snapped Victoria's neck, decapitating her, and went to help the girl. She'd lost so much blood; I knew there wasn't enough time to get her to a hospital for transfusions, even at my speed. I went against my better judgment and transfused my own blood into her system. With my spontaneous regeneration, I have an unlimited supply. I didn't know how much of my blood was too much; if it would kill her like the wrong blood type might kill someone, if it would change her, or if she'd be okay, and still human. The 2nd worst scenario is what came to pass, but she's adapted to this life beautifully, and never held me responsible for what happened. It's like she was made for this. She already has all of my abilities, which I'm sure made her transformation incredibly painful, but she doesn't seem to remember it."

Trixie smiled at her sister, reaching across the table to grasp her hand. "I can't remember my life before I woke up that morning, but I do feel like I fit in this new body, in this new life rather well," she agreed.

"Oh, did I miss dinner?" Jacob said as he entered the house through the back door. He entered the dining room and locked eyes with Reya. As I heard his thoughts, it was as if his entire world shifted. Like the axis of the earth was on this girl. Suddenly his entire existence revolved around her. I'd remembered Sam mentioning something about imprinting once, and I think that was what happened that moment. Reya caught his gaze and smiled at him as if she'd just seen the sun for the first time.

* * *

Author's note:

Had to laugh… Microsoft word tried to auto-correct "Pyrokinesis" to "Perkiness." Perkiness would be Alice's super-power if she wasn't a seer, LOL.

Maybe some of you predicted the Reya-Jacob imprinting thing? If not, I'm happy to have surprised you. :)

If any of you watched the show Kyle XY, that's where I got my idea for Reya and Lukas. I just added some extra science-fictiony things to their makeup.

* * *

I've come up with a few different ideas for how to reunite Edward and Bella, so I'll likely be posting them as alternate story plots/endings after I'm done with this story arc.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Trixie PoV

Jacob entered the room and made eye contact with Reya, and she with him. As I looked at her, it was like something in her world shifted. I watched her eyes carefully and they sparkled as if she was seeing the most amazing thing. It was the way Edward looked at me when he finally realized I was here and alive. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she just found the other half to her soul, but he was human, right? A huge human, but still human. And she vowed to never get involved with a human. At the same time, their reaction to each other was anything but human. It seemed like love at first sight, but that belonged in movies and fairy tales. This was real life, and while chock full of mythological creatures and super heroes, that stuff just didn't happen. Or so I thought.

"What's going on?" I whispered to Edward.

"I think the dog imprinted on your sister," he whispered back. I quirked an eyebrow at him, but he just smirked in response. "Let's wait and see what happens." I sat there staring back and forth between the large man and my sister trying to figure out what was going on. They both stayed stock still, staring at each other, acting as if they were to look away, the other person would disappear.

"I'm Reya," my sister finally said, breaking the silence. She stood up and walked over to Jacob, extending her hand in greeting. He broke his gaze from her eyes to stare at her hand. After a moment, he reached out and held it in his. She smiled at him, really smiled at him, flashing the 1000 watt smile that she reserved for dazzling humans to do her bidding or forget something they shouldn't have seen.

He looked just as discombobulated as the humans always did, but then flashed an equally blinding smile back at her. "Jacob," he replied finally. "Jacob Black."

"I think we have a lot to talk about, wolf-man," Reya said. Jacob's eyebrows shot to the roof. "Yep, lots to talk about. Let's go for a walk." And she threaded her arm in his and led him out the door he just came in.

"Can someone please explain to me what just happened?" I asked.

"Well first of all," Edward replied. "Jacob is a werewolf."

"A what?!" I exclaimed.

"Well, he shape-shifts into a giant wolf. So he's not a werewolf in the traditional sense, but he is inhuman, and can kill vampires, and if he keeps shifting regularly, he won't age," Alice explained. "So, as Reya is as immortal as you, I'm assuming, then being mated to him won't be a problem so long as he keeps phasing."

"Mated?" I asked, still confused. "Is that what just happened?"

"The pack calls it imprinting, but essentially it's their equivalent to mating, as vampires do. Jacob will spend the rest of his existence loving Reya more than anything else in the world. She'll be his everything, and if she wishes, he'll be hers, too."

"Wow, it was crazy, I looked at her and I just knew that there was some temporal shift in her brain or something. Her eyes changed, and she looked all gooey, normally she has such a tough exterior, but he melted all her walls with one glance. Is he a good man? Or do I need to give him a talking-to?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips for emphasis.

"Oh, trust me, he's a good man," Edward told me, chuckling. "He tried to save you from me at the junior prom, once." He told me the story of going to prom and that Jacob cut in for one dance, telling me that the tribe would be 'watching' her. Though at the time, he had no idea what that meant. "Like you," Edward continued, "Jacob has a very warm and kind soul. You were sort of friends, and if you weren't spending most of your time with me, you probably would have been a lot closer to him." He sounded as if he was jealous, but I shrugged it off. Not like it mattered now, anyway.

"Trixie," Carlisle addressed me. "Now that you've explained everything, I need to ask you a question." I gestured for him to continue. "What do you want to do about your human family?" he asked. "Do you want to keep them in the dark about your whereabouts? Do you want to reunite with them as you have with us?"

I thought for a moment before replying. "I think it's best to keep them in the dark. The only reason I came with Emmett was because I knew he was a vampire. If he'd been human, I'd have kept on running. There's no place for me in the human world other than an observer and occasional saver of lives. I can pretend to blend in, but I never will. I know that if I were to reunite with my family that I'd have to leave them again in a few years. I'd hate to break their hearts twice. It may sound cowardly, but I'd rather they don't know about my return."

"That's very understandable," Carlisle replied. "And not cowardly at all. You're saving them the grief of having you lose you twice. At over three hundred years, I've had to move countless times, sever ties that I made with humans more times than I care to remember. Each of them made an impression on me, and I can only hope I did the same with them. It doesn't get any less painful as the years go by; you just learn to cope with it better."

"Thank you Carlisle," I said, graciously. "Okay, so where do we go from here?" I asked, turning to Edward. It felt natural to turn to him for guidance, even though I didn't know him… or rather, didn't remember knowing him.

"Well, you're welcome to stay here, with us," he replied. "We can have a room made for you, and one for Reya if she chooses to stay where you are. We're a 'the more the merrier' type family." I turned to the rest of the vampires in the room to see if they all agreed. Everyone smiled and nodded, welcomingly. To them, I was the long lost sister or daughter, finally come home. Of course they wanted me here. I was the one that had to get used to it.

"Shopping first!" Alice exclaims, dancing over to me. I wondered if she always walked that way. Dancing through life on the balls of her feet, in her designer stilettos. "You didn't bring any clothes with you, right?" she asked. I shook my head. "Well then, we need to take you shopping! Tanya, Kate, Irina, Rose, let's go!" she grabbed my hand and pulled me to the front door. I was absorbing her excitement, so I couldn't find it in me to protest. I didn't care for shopping, but I did want to bond with these women. It seemed as though I was going to be spending the foreseeable future with them, so it was important that I get to know everyone.

On my way out the door, I glanced back at Edward, winked at him, and blew him a kiss. His eyes lit up and a huge smile graced his face. He pantomimed catching the kiss and placing it against his heart. That made my heart soar.

Edward PoV

Alice silently told me that they'd be going on an extended shopping trip, meaning they'd be getting on a plane and flying to New York, most likely. And gone for several days. I didn't want to be separated from Trixie that long, but I also knew that everyone in my family needed to rekindle their relationships with her, not just me. "Edward," Esme addressed me. "I want to make her room special. Let's get started." I went with her to her drawing room where she began sketching out plans for an addition to the house. With vampire speed and unlimited resources at our fingertips, adding a few extra rooms to the house could be done in a matter of days. Especially with everyone else that was here, namely the men, Carmen and Esme, we could have it done in no time.

"I don't know what she likes anymore," I said, worriedly. "I mean, she's a completely different person now. I love her more than ever, of course, but her personality has changed as much as her appearance. What if she doesn't like to read the classics anymore? Or doesn't even recognize the music she used to love?"

"Dude, have you even been present the last few hours? She's still Bella. Just more durable and confident. She's not the shy clumsy human she used to be and that has translated into making her stronger and more independent. Her likes and dislikes seem to be about the same, to me. Hell, she still has a thing for _you_, for some crazy reason." I glared at him. "Hey, I'm just joking bro. But for real, I don't need Jasper's gift to know she's nuts about you still."

"Well, my gift doesn't even work on her anymore, anyway," Jasper said. I looked at him questioningly. "She's as absent to my senses as her mind is to yours, Ed. I can't read her at all. And Alice said she can't see her either. She can only see those that are around her. That's why she's been so hard to find all this time. Alice realized not long ago that she can't see Bella, er, Trixie at all. She can see the decisions of those around her, though, even though she hasn't met them. But unless someone's decision involves Bella directly, she can't see anything."

"I wonder why that is," Carlisle said absently, thinking about all the science and science-fiction he's ever read, trying to make sense of the enigmas that are Trixie and Reya. As if on cue, Reya and Jacob came bounding back into the house.

"Thank god I wasn't here for the collective shopping trip departure, I hate shopping more than Trixie does," Reya said. "I hear you are having some difficulties figuring out how to decorate Trixie's room." We all gape at her. "My hearing is super good," she added.

"Her favorite colors are jade green and gold, but never together," she began, which made me flinch. "But I don't think she'd want green walls or gold bedding or anything, just a few accents here and there, but mostly neutral or a deep purple. She'll want a skylight, or really, a glass ceiling if we can manage it, but with all the snow that falls here, I'm not sure how feasible that would be. Judging by the décor in this house and the cars outside, I'm guessing that money is no object for you." We all nodded. "Okay, good, well it isn't for us either, so if Trixie asks, tell her that she and I paid for most of the renovations. She hates when others spend money on her." That earned a chuckle from everyone in the room and Reya realized this was a trait that Trixie carried over from her Bella days.

She moved over to stand next to Esme and offered up more suggestions on the construction of the rooms, and where Trixie would want certain things placed. "What kind of car do you think she'd want?" Jacob asked. "She used to have an old 50s Chevy truck that I rebuilt. She loved that truck."

"Great idea, Jake!" Reya exclaimed, clapping her hands together in a very Alice-like gesture. "Let's get her an old truck that has been updated to be much-much faster than the original model. I can take care of that."

Within the hour, Esme, Carmen and Reya were on the phone, ordering supplies; Emmett and Jasper were out in the yard, marking the lines where the foundation would be dug. Reya 'scanned' the ground, indicating where existing wiring and pipes were so we knew where to dig. We all froze for a moment when we saw her eyes glaze over. I wished I could read her mind to see what she saw, but she was as silent to me as Trixie. I'd have to ask her about that later.

By morning the foundation was dug, the existing walls removed to account for the extended hallways, stairs and rooms. Emmett and Jasper had poured the foundation and were laying the cinderblocks that would make up the foundation's walls. Reya was a whiz with her telekinesis; she was able to mix the concrete in the air without ruining a single bucket, nor spilling a single drop of water. We all watched in amazement as the powder and water danced in the air until it created the tell-tale gray sludge. She'd drop the mixture into the middle of the foundation hole, and Emmett and Jasper would rush to spread it out, making sure it was level. I'm sure that Reya could have done it all on her own, but she knew the rest of us would want to do our fair share of work.

That afternoon we had the frame built, and Trixie's new-old truck arrived. It was the same color, make, and model of her previous truck, only Reya put in a much newer engine. While the rest of us worked on putting the siding on the house, they rebuilt the engine and added all kinds of gizmos that Trixie would love. Rosalie would be sad that she missed out on the fun of that.

"Finally the fun part!" Esme exclaimed once we were done taping, mudding, and sanding the drywall. She was excited to start painting and decorating the inside. In keeping with the original house, the entire outside of the addition was log, save for the chimney which was rock. Reya had flown rock in from somewhere in Europe that she said Trixie admired when they were there that summer.

Three days later we were done, and Alice texted that she and the girls were on their way home. Trixie had no idea what we were up to, and Alice intended to keep it that way as long as possible.

Trixie PoV

I could tell something was up. All the girls were acting very strange. I wanted to delve into their minds to figure out what it was, but I chose not to. Whatever they were hiding wasn't to hurt me, I figured, so I had no reason to invade the privacy of their minds.

The shopping trip was fun, well as fun as shopping trips can be. Though shopping with a bunch of vampires was an experience on its own. It was a good thing I didn't need much sleep, because they hardly let me have any at all. I came home with more outfits than I'd ever have days to wear, but Alice stated that all of them were a wardrobe requirement. Why I needed three versions of the same sweater in different colors was beyond me. But I did bond with her, and began to realize why she considered me a sister. I definitely felt that connection with her.

The other girls were great, too. Tanya kept eyeing me up and down like she was either sizing me up or wanting to seduce me, I couldn't quite figure out which. Rosalie said honestly, that we didn't get along before, but it was because she had her own personal issues to deal with, and that she was going to work hard to make it different this time. I thanked her for her effort, but in all truth, it didn't matter since I didn't remember her not liking me before. Kate and Irina were very friendly, helpful with the suggestions, and overall seemed like really great women. Reya was right that not all vampires were bad, in fact until that moment, I hadn't thought of them as that really at all.

On the flight home, Alice's eyes kept glazing over, which I learned was because she was having visions of the future. I wondered if that's how I would look if I ever had a vision. I'd yet to have one, even in my dreams, but there was always the chance that it would happen someday.

We retrieved the cars from the extended flight lot at the anchorage airport and made our way back to their home. I couldn't quite think of it as my home yet, as it didn't have that touch of me there. Perhaps in time I'd feel that way, especially if things progressed with Edward the way I wanted them to.

I couldn't deny that there was a connection between us. Every time we touched, it was like there was an electric current flowing from me to him and back again. I wondered what would happen once we kissed. Then all I could think about was kissing Edward. His lips looked like satin, ice cold satin. I figured that when we kissed when I was human, if we ever kissed that for me it would have been like kissing a statue. Now that my own skin was as hard as his, it would be different. More like kissing Lukas, only colder.

"Alice, can I ask you about Edward?" I queried to the pixie in the seat next to me.

"Sure Trix, what would you like to ask? And let me add that it's very frustrating that I can't see what you're going to ask before you ask it, anymore."

I chuckled, knowing exactly why she couldn't see me anymore, but chose to keep it to myself for the time being. "He still loves me," I started.

"That's not a question," she replied. "But yes, he does. More than anything. And I don't think I could have timed your return to our family more perfectly if I'd been able to see you. He had a lot of growing up to do, and you needed to become more independent. Both of those things have happened it seems, and you're now perfect for each other. He's the other half to your soul, Trixie. And you're his."

"It's just so much. I mean, not only did I find my long-lost family, I've found a mate? I thought I'd be alone always, except for Reya's brother, but…"

"Reya's brother?!" she asked, cutting me off.

"Yeah, Lukas. He's the same as us, and he and I had a little fling summer after my freshman year of college. It didn't last long; we were more like vigilante crime fighters who also made out."

"Did you sleep with him?" Tanya asked. The other girls shushed her and glared at her. "What? I'm just curious. Edward would want to know if he saved himself all this time for a girl who already lost it to someone else."

"Wow, Tanya," Rosalie said. "Really? You're going to go _there_? After all this time. Don't worry Trixie," she said, turning towards me. "Edward has only ever loved you, and he's so damned old fashioned that he's never been with anyone before. You were the first girl he kissed, and he was turned in 1918. He never slept with anyone, had any flings, or anything like that. And Tanya, who has slept with enough men that the list would stretch from here to the moon and back, has been barking up Edward's tree for decades. He never paid her a minute of attention that way, and the fact that he has with you makes her incredibly jealous. Even though she _knows_ he'll never return her feelings." She directed that last sentence to the blonde in question.

I realized then that she was sizing me up, not checking me out earlier. Well, if it came down to a cat fight, I knew without a doubt who'd win, though I'd rather it not come to that. "Okay, thank you Rosalie. First of all, Tanya, I did not sleep with Lukas nor anyone else since Reya changed me. If I was a virgin before, then I still am. Secondly, even if I wasn't, if Edward truly loves me as I believe he does, that wouldn't matter to him. Thirdly, if you so much as think of trying to ruin us, and I _know_ you're thinking it, you'll regret it." I added my most menacing tone to that last sentence and let her see my eyes darken to angry black, to get my point across. She cowered in her seat and remained silent for the rest of the trip. She'd seen my display of powers the other day and knew she was no match for me, despite being over a thousand years old. The others were giving me hidden thumbs up and grinning at me.

Finally we reached the house, only we approached from the opposite side from where the cars were usually parked. This tipped me off to shenanigans, and I knew why the girls were acting so odd ever since we left New York. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Edward, Esme and the others have a surprise for you," Alice told me. "They've been working on it since we left, but that's not the reason I took you away for so long. I honestly didn't see him decide until after we left."

"Decide what?" I asked. She told me I'd have to wait and see. She parked the car and we all filed out, grabbing our shopping bags and carrying them into the house. We entered from the back door, which made me even more curious. What was it about the front of the house that they didn't want me to see? "Where should I put my stuff?" I asked, realizing I didn't have a closet or even a dresser here."

"In your bedroom, of course," Edward replied from somewhere down the hall. I followed his voice and realized the hallway extended beyond where I remembered. I looked behind me to make sure I wasn't going crazy, but as I approached, I could surely detect the smells of fresh paint, new dry wall, sawdust and concrete. Someone had been very busy while I was away. He stood at the end of the hall, a huge grin plastered on his face. "May I take your bags?" he asked, holding out his arms. I handed over the bags and looked around. To my left was a beautiful sitting room that was more windows than walls. It had a beautiful view of the forest and the mountain range beyond. I imagined running out to one of those mountains and sitting for a spell.

In the room was a series of overstuffed chairs covered in soft dark brown suede. I ran my fingers across the fabric, luxuriating in its softness. There was a fireplace surrounded by slate tiles with a fire already lit inside it. The tables were made of maple trees, the trunk sliced so as to see the rings of age. On one table was a photograph. Of me and Edward, from prom I guessed based on how we were dressed. I was pretty as a human, but it was much more subtle than now. My hair was curled and styled perfectly, probably by Alice, and the man on my arm looked at me like I was the most wonderful thing in the world. I turned around to find him, and there he was in the doorway, looking at me in exactly the same way.

"This is for me?" I asked.

"For you, Reya and Jacob," he clarified. "Come on, there's more." He held out his hand to me. I noticed he wasn't holding my bags anymore. He must have put them somewhere so he could hold my hand. I grabbed his hand, lacing my fingers with his, feeling the current flow between us. He raised my hand to his lips and placed a chaste kiss there. My arm felt the zing of his lips all the way to my shoulder. Then we were walking across the hall to a brand new staircase. There were other new doors on this floor, but apparently they weren't what was important. We went up two flights of stairs, bringing us to the third floor where the majority of the bedrooms were. "This is your room," he said, as he opened the door and gestured for me to go inside.

The room was paradise. The bed was a huge canopy bed with thick dark purple curtains that could be pulled tight to block out all light. The way I preferred to sleep. The bedding looked like a lilac colored cloud with dark purple throw pillows. I wanted to run and jump on it and feel myself sink into the softness. Realizing there was far more light in the room than there should be, I looked up only to see that the entire ceiling was glass. That with one whole glass wall, one could feel like they were on display, but I just felt like I had the best view in the entire world. The glass wall had a sliding door that opened onto a deck, complete with Adirondack chairs, a matching table and a chiminea for outdoor fires. On the far left side of the deck was a hot tub. This was glorious.

Edward was standing by the door holding an oversized remote control in his hand. He smiled at me as he pressed a button. I turned to the new noise and watched as the ceiling and glass wall retracted, leaving the room open to the outside. My bedroom was also a deck in addition to the deck I already had. This was amazing. "You did all this?" I asked.

"Well, the nine of us that were still here did," he replied. "I… we wanted you to have a space of your own here, somewhere you could retreat to, something you could call yours. We drew on what we knew of you before and what Reya said about you and went from there. Esme did most of the designing with Reya's input here and there. The retractable ceiling and wall was Reya's idea."

"It's perfect, Edward. Thank you so much." I explored the room, learning that my closet was nearly as big as the room itself and already stocked with the clothes I bought in New York. Alice must have done that while I was in the sitting room downstairs. I think there were a few extra things in there, too that Alice bought, swearing they weren't for me, but I knew they were in my size, not hers.

One whole wall was a book case that held limited editions of many classic novels. Edward told me they were my favorites before. I'd read some of them since and still loved them as much as I must have then. There were also rows upon rows of music and movies. "A gift from Emmett," Edward explained. "He thought you might like to do more than just read. This wall has a projector screen built in that will slide down with one of the buttons, and up there is your television projector." I looked up and buried within the drapery of my canopy bed was the projector. Edward then showed me where I could play the movies and music. A sound system literally built into the wall.

"Reya must have helped with that," I said. Edward chuckled and nodded.

"I think she and Emmett are going to be best friends. He loves all that high-tech stuff." There was a sitting area in the room as well, with deep soft sofas and a papasan chair, much like the one I'd curl up in at the Summers' home in San Francisco. "You never did get a tour of the rest of the house, just Emmett's room, the living room and the kitchen, right?" Edward asked. I nodded and took his hand, letting him lead me on a tour of the rest of the house. I felt like I was home at last.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Edward PoV

Trixie seemed truly pleased by all our hard work. After I gave her a tour of the rest of the house, she thanked each person individually, somehow knowing exactly what they had worked on to get it finished. "There's one last surprise, Bells… er Trixie, sorry," Jake said.

"You can call me Bells, if you like," she replied. "My name is Bellatrix, so I am used to hearing that, somewhat. I still prefer Trixie or Trix, but you all can call me whatever is most comfortable for you," she told us. I smiled at that, but had decided to continue calling her Trixie. The Bella I knew was gone, this perfect woman had taken her place, and I loved her more than ever.

Jake led her out to the driveway where a vehicle was covered in a white tarp. She eyed it suspiciously and glanced at her sister, who smirked at her. Bella lifted the tarp away without touching it and saw the beautifully rebuilt Chevy truck underneath. It was painted red like her old one, but a hot-rod red with ghost flames on the hood. "A truck?" she asked, surprised.

"You had one of these before. It was in a lot worse condition than this one, but it was built by me and a gift to you from your father. I thought that since you couldn't be with him, you could have this, that might remind you that he loved you, and even if he can't know about you, he'll always be in your heart," Jake explained. She threw her arms around him in a bone crushing hug. In fact, I heard a couple of his bones creak under her hands. She released him immediately, apologizing profusely. "It's okay, Bells. I heal fast, and you didn't hurt me that bad. Not any worse than this one has, anyway," he said with a wink at Reya. She blushed and looked down at her shoes, which were suddenly the most interesting thing ever.

"This is all so wonderful. I already felt like you all welcomed me as part of your family, and now it's a tangible thing, too." She stroked her hand along the side of the truck admiring the handiwork. Rosalie was inside having a fit that she wasn't here to help with the rebuild, but Trixie seemed to ignore her. I smelled the tears before I saw them.

"Why are you crying?" I asked Trixie brushing a tear away with my cheek. "You don't like it?"

"I love it, Edward. I love everything. These are happy tears," she replied. I pulled her into my arms and held her tight. This was where she belonged, where she would always belong, right here with me, at my side. We walked back inside hand in hand into the kitchen where Esme and Carmen were busy putting out a spread for the three food eaters to enjoy.

After eating, Trixie mentioned she wanted to take a nice long soak in her new hot tub. "Care to join me?" she asked.

"Um, sure," I replied. We parted ways at the top of the stairs, when I went into my bedroom to change into my swimming trunks. I could hear nothing but the happy thoughts of everyone in my family over being reunited with my mate. Emmett's thoughts were a bit more suggestive, but I chose to ignore him. I would move at the pace that Trixie was most comfortable with. I highly doubted that we'd be doing any of the things that he was thinking about, though I couldn't deny that my own thoughts were taking a stroll down that lane.

When I emerged from my bedroom, Trixie's door was open. "Are you decent?" I called out.

"As decent as I'm going to be in this thing," she replied. I think she was still in her closet. "What on Earth was Alice thinking with this business?" I heard Alice's thoughts on the matter; she was none too pleased with Trixie's dislike of her bikini choices. I blinked and she was no longer in the closet, but out on the deck, and in the hot tub. Damn she was fast. Even my heightened vampiric sight didn't see her. "Are you coming out or what?" she asked me.

Steeling my resolve, I crossed her bedroom and stepped out onto the deck. Turning to the left, I saw her seated in the hot tub, the jets on full blast. It was a clear night, dusk finally settling, giving way to twilight. "It's my favorite time of day," she said. I knew I had said those exact same words to her once before. "It's even more beautiful up here than anywhere else I've been. The colors of the sun mixing with the colors of the night, it creates the most beautiful picturesque scene. Then the stars come out and it's night again. It's the saddest time of day, too, bringing on the darkness of night."

"Where did you hear that?" I asked.

"I'm not sure; I was just thinking it, why?"

"Because I said almost verbatim that same thing to you once a long time ago," I replied. I climbed into the water and sat on the opposite side from her. She seemed to ponder my words for a moment, as if trying to remember where she'd heard it before, or if she thought of it on her own.

"I can't thank you enough for all this, Edward. I know everyone played their part, but Alice said it was your idea." She scooted closer to me, eyeing my reaction to her nearness. I turned towards her, inviting her to be as close as she liked. Soon our knees were touching and her face was only a foot from mine.

"You're very welcome, Trixie," I replied. I reached out to her and pushed a stray strand of her short hair behind her ear. As much as I loved her long mahogany locks before, this haircut suited her well, too. She leaned into my touch, closing her eyes as her face was cradled in the palm of my hand. She then turned her body to be aligned with mine and scooted closer, pressing herself against my side and resting her head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around her and stroked her other arm softly as we enjoyed the evening air.

"I can't help but feel this deep connection with you," she told me. "It's wonderful, but at the same time, it terrifies me."

"What are you terrified of?" I asked. "I can promise you that I'll never leave you. I learned my lesson the first and only time I tried that. It nearly killed you and all but destroyed me. That's a mistake one only makes once."

"I'm not worried about that," she replied. "It's more that I'm feeling so much so soon. I mean, in my mind, I've only known you a week, but my heart feels like it's known you for a lifetime."

"I understand that. I'm going through something similar, though kind of the opposite, I suppose. I remember you, or rather, I remember Bella. You look like her, you smell like her, overall your personality is the same, but there are enough differences that I feel like I'm falling for a whole different person. And it's happening very, very fast."

Soon she began humming. I could feel the vibrations of her voice against my chest. I leaned over and kissed her hair, encouraging her to continue. It was a slow tune, happy notes, but not bouncy, perfect for this night. I wondered for a moment what song it was until she continued and I recognized it. "Trixie!" I exclaimed. "What song is that?" I asked.

"Um, I'm not sure. I hum it to myself all the time. Especially at night. Why?"

"Because that's a lullaby," I replied. "A lullaby that I wrote for you." She sat up abruptly, confusion and shock written all over her face. She called out to her sister who appeared moments later, Jacob hot on her heels.

"What's wrong?" Reya asked.

"When did I start humming this song at night?" Trixie asked, humming a few bars of the melody.

"You've always done that," Reya replied. "In fact, you were humming it during your transformation. It seemed to calm you. I always wondered what song it was. Where is it from?" When Trixie told her that I had written it, Reya's expression mirrored Trixie's earlier shock and confusion.

"How can I remember a song or a phrase that he's said to me, but not anything else?" Trixie asked. "It doesn't make any sense."

"I think it might go along with what you said earlier. That your heart has known me for a life time. Your heart remembers me, and things like the song and the phrase," I explained to the best of my knowledge. There was no way to prove my theory, but it made sense all the same.

"That's a sound theory, Edward," Reya said. Trixie seemed placated and relaxed against me again. "We'll um, give you your privacy," Reya added, tugging Jacob back into the house behind her.

She snuggled into me, nuzzling my neck with her hair. The feeling was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. "This is nice," she said after a few minutes of silence. I nodded my agreement with her and kissed her hair again. Her fingers sought out mine and she laced them together. "What instrument did you compose my lullaby on?" she asked.

"My piano," I replied. "The very one sitting in the music room downstairs."

"I'd like to hear it sometime," she requested.

"As you wish," I agreed.

Night had completely fallen and we were shrouded in a blanket of stars, not a single cloud to mar the view. Trixie began identifying constellations, many that I'd never even heard of. She knew the stories behind each one and wove a fascinating tale involving Greek, Roman, and Norse gods. In the middle of her story, though, she began yawning.

"Ugh, I don't want to go to sleep yet," she complained. "God, I sound like a toddler." She shook her head and swam away from me heading towards the steps. I realized at this moment that I never got to see her bikini. I could feel how much of her was exposed when she pressed herself into my side, but the jets were strong enough to hide her body from my view. She hesitated for a moment before standing up and slowly stepping out of the water. My jaw dropped open.

She looked incredible. I always thought she had a nice body, but now it was out of this world. Her hips flared out giving her a very subtle coke bottle figure, her chest had filled out and she had muscles. Oh, did she have muscles. Her abs were taut across her stomach, outlined perfectly, moving slightly when she'd breathe. Her arms rippled enticingly as she grabbed the towel from the nearby table and used it to dry off. I was rooted to my position, watching her unabashedly. Sinuous shoulders flexed and stretched as she moved the towel around her body.

She turned and caught me. "I'd say some cheesy line about photos lasting longer, but your mind is like mine, right? You remember everything in perfect detail?" I nodded dumbly. "Well then, a photo would leave something to be desired, I suppose." She picked up another towel and held it out towards me, indicating for me to get out.

She watched me carefully as I did so, her eyes darting all over, checking out my arms, chest and abs. I wasn't as muscled as Emmett or Jacob, but I wasn't scrawny either. Where Emmett was all bulk my muscles were wirier. If I wasn't mistaken, I saw her lick her lips when I completely stood up outside the tub. Well at least we were still attracted to each other that way.

Back in her room, she darted into the closet and returned in a matching tank top and shorts. "Um, so I guess I'll see you in the morning?" she asked. Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. It was the first awkward thing I'd seen her do.

"Absolutely," I replied. I stepped up to her, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. "Sweet Dreams my Trixie," I whispered in her ear. She swayed on her feet for a moment and I dashed out of her room before I went against my better judgment and asked to stay with her.

Trixie PoV

I wanted him to kiss me. Oh god, did I want him to kiss me. But even just the chaste peck on my cheek sent me off balance. I fluttered to my bed as if dancing on a cloud, and sunk into the squishy mattress, pulling the downy covers around me and fell into a deep sleep. I didn't bother to pull the drapes closed around my bed.

I dreamt of my encounter with Edward in the hot tub, only in this one the sexual tension between us was so ramped up that we couldn't contain our desire for each other.

_He tore at my bikini latching his lips onto my breasts, licking, sucking and lightly biting me. Each kiss sent a jolt straight to my core making me want him more than anything. "Take me, Edward," I whispered to him. _

_He growled seductively at me and lifted me up out of the water, setting me on the side. He leaned in for a searing kiss and then trailed hot, wet kisses down my torso. Stopping when he got to my core, he ran his tongue from bottom to top, sending a chill down my spine. _

_His tongue played with me relentlessly, bringing me almost to climax and then backing off, teasing me. Finally, I'd had enough and pulled him up to my level. I grabbed his erect member and placed it at my entrance. "Now, Edward," I begged. He slid into me quickly and stilled for a moment, allowing me to get used to him filling me._

_Then the movement started. In and out, over and over, water splashing out of the tub onto the floor and rolling off the deck to the ground below. He pounded into me growling, groaning and purring the entire time. I wasn't silent myself, moaning louder and louder the more he went on._

_I felt my release approaching and cried out as he pumped into me harder, making my climax hit me like a freight train. He was right along with me, spilling into me and biting into my shoulder as he came. _

In the morning I wished I had pulled the drapes shut, as my entire room was filled with blinding light. It was just after dawn and the sun had peeked over the trees, pouring into my room. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my face. I wanted to go back into that very tantalizing dream. I'd never had a dream like that, and more than anything I wanted it to have been a vision and not just a dream.

"Trixie! Get up!" Reya hollered from the other side of my door. I growled at her. "It's a beautiful sunny day, and you need to see what these vamps look like in the sun," she told me. I remembered she said they didn't burn but that something else altogether happened. I threw the blankets off and stumbled into my en suite bathroom.

10 minutes later I was showered, dressed, and ready for the day. A light knock on my door brought me out of the closet; Edward was standing on the other side, a single golden tulip in his hand. "Good morning, my dear," he said, grasping my hand and pulling it up to his lips for a kiss. I smiled and blushed, taking the rose from him. Now I knew why there was an empty vase on one of my shelves. I quickly filed it with water and placed the tulip in it, setting the vase on the coffee table in my sitting area.

"So what's this sunlight thing I hear about?" I asked. He gestured for me move from the doorway and he stepped into my room. All of a sudden my room was filled with sparkling light that reflected off of every surface, throwing rainbows all around like a prism with millions of facets. I searched for the source only to find it came from Edward. He'd removed his shirt and the lights were coming from his skin!

I stepped in front of him, blocking some of the light and felt along his arm, letting the lights dance on my skin. "This is amazing," I told him. "I feel like I've seen it before. Did you show me once?"

"Yes," he replied. "You called me beautiful."

"You are," I told him.

"Not as beautiful as you," he answered, wrapping his arms around me. I slid my hands up his muscled biceps over his shoulders and into his hair. I had been dreaming of running my fingers through his bronze hair. It was even softer than I imagined. He let out a low rumbling sound that resembled a purr. When I looked up into his eyes, I noticed they were darkening to black. Was he angry? He didn't look angry. In fact, he looked like he wanted to kiss me, and there was nothing in this world that I wanted more than that.

He leaned closer, his lips inches from mine. "Is this too fast?" he asked. I could feel his cool breath on my lips. I shook my head and leaned into him minutely, closing the gap ever so slightly. He took that as his cue to press his lips to mine. Instantly, a cacophony of images and sounds passed through my head. Pictures of sitting with him a beautiful meadow, hearing my lullaby for the first time, driving an old beat up truck to school. Edward saving me from a car crash, me telling him I knew he was a vampire. Almost being attacked in Port Angeles, being bitten by a blonde vampire named James and having Edward suck the venom back out. A birthday party where I cut my finger on wrapping paper, which triggered a shit storm of events that wound up with me as an immortal human.

I pulled away from his lips and stared blankly at him. "What's wrong?" he asked. It took a moment, but all the images, sounds and emotions that just flashed into my mind sorted themselves into an order that made sense.

"I… I remember," I whispered. "I remember everything."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Edward PoV

"I remember everything," she just said. Then she was on the floor cradling her head in her hands, groaning in pain. "It burns!" she cried out. I called out for Carlisle and Reya and they were in the room in an instant.

Reya placed her hand on Trixie's forehead and pulled it away instantly, shaking her hand as if it was burned. "Her memory block has been lifted and all eighteen years of her life are coming back to her as fast as the speed of light. She's burning up. Edward, go fill her bathtub, coldest water you can. Carlisle get ice to add to it." I dashed into the en-suite and began filling the oversized tub. I heard Carlisle run down stairs and tell Emmett to go to town and buy a bunch of ice. He then went to the kitchen and pulled the ice maker reservoir out of the freezer, and bounded back up the stairs with it.

Reya picked Trixie up and carried her into the bathroom. She was fully dressed, but Reya just placed her right in the tub. She took the cubes from Carlisle and poured most of them into the water, using some to run across Trixie's forehead. "This is medically a very bad idea," Carlisle said. "Bringing down her temperature too far and too fast could result in hypothermia."

"We're not talking about conventional medicine here, Doc," Reya replied. "Trixie's core temperature is approaching two hundred degrees. Her memories are playing through her head rapidly, have set her brain on overload trying to sort them out, and she needs to be cooled down. Like a computer," she explained.

A few minutes later, Emmett arrived with a few bags of ice. Reya placed one whole bag on Trixie's forehead, pouring the rest of the ice into the tub with her. "Come on Trixie, cool down," Reya whispered. I watched as the ice melted around her, the bag on her forehead quickly becoming a bag of water. I touched my finger into the tub and learned that she was heating the water, rather than it cooling her down. "She's still too hot," Reya said, placing her hand on Trixie's forehead, cheek and chest. "I need to try something else." She lifted Reya out of tub and carried her out to the bedroom and out on the deck. Before I could protest, she jumped off the deck and was flying with Reya away from the house and towards the mountains.

"The air is colder up there, Edward," Carlisle said. "That must be why she went that way." I jumped off the deck after them and ran through the trees, keeping my eyes up, trying to track them. I scaled the mountain side as quickly as I could, as I saw Reya fly directly to the peak of Mount McKinley. When I arrived, Trixie was laying in a deep puddle of what must have been snow a few minutes before. Reya kept breaking ice chunks off of the mountain, throwing them into the pool with Trixie.

"My body temperature is thirty degrees," I told her. "Could I jump in and help?" Reya paused for a moment before agreeing to my idea. I quickly shed my shirt and pants, jumping in the pool and wrapping Trixie in my arms. Reya was right, her body temp was much too high. I pulled her close against me and wrapped her as tightly in my arms as I could. She was still groaning, but was unresponsive, otherwise.

A few minutes later, I noticed a minute change in her temperature. "I think she's starting too cool," I told Reya. She threw a fresh batch of ice boulders in the now bigger pool and felt Trixie's forehead. She sighed in relief.

"Thank you for your help, Edward. Just a few more degrees and she'll be safe," she replied, squeezing my shoulder. "She'll still be a bit warm, but in a manageable range. I imagine she'll be out of it for a while though as her mind arranges everything into a chronological order. That can take a day or two."

"Why so long?" I asked.

"Think of our brains as computers, as I said earlier. Right now, the information that was unlocked is written in a series of code, mostly binary. She's organized some of it into images and sounds, which is what she saw initially, but there are eighteen years of memories that need to be sorted. That's the equivalent of over 10,000 gigs of data. It would take any computer a week or more to sort that out. Our brains work much faster, but in a similar way. She's converting all that code into viewable memories, like videos, then she'll add the emotional codes and thoughts that she had when those things happened. When it's all said and done, she'll be able to play back her human life like a movie, selecting any random clip she chooses. Even the memories that were already dim or fading to her human mind will come back perfectly clear. Let's just say that if she were to write out that code on a whiteboard, for instance, it would take her 23 years to complete it, even at our speed."

Reya's words made sense, but I could hardly believe them. It was like they were more android than human. Even though, biologically, they were human. They still had all their organs, there were no foreign objects or microchips embedded into their bodies, but yet, they operated in many ways like the bionic woman. Emmett would have a field day with these thoughts.

When Trixie's body temperature dropped to what Reya called a safe level, we carried her back to the house. Reya and Esme changed Trixie's clothes for dry ones and laid her in bed. I stayed in the bed with her to help keep her cool. I stroked her hair, her forehead and her cheek with my cool fingers, willing her to come back to me. I couldn't lose her again. Reya kept assuring me that she would come out of it, and to just give her time.

I had no basis of comparison, so it looked to me like she was in a coma. Comas could last for years, decades even. Not that I didn't have anything but time ahead of me, but I'd rather spend them with her alert and by my side. I also hoped that once she organized her memories that she wouldn't kick me to the curb. I deserved worse than that for what I did, but I couldn't help but hope that her words from the other day would still ring true. She forgave me for what she couldn't remember. Now that she would remember, would she still feel the same?

Thirty-eight hours, fifty-two minutes and nine seconds later, Trixie's eyelids fluttered. A few minutes later she began to awaken. She moved her hand to her head as if rubbing a painful headache. "What the fuck happened?" she asked.

"You kissed me, and then all your memories returned," I explained. "Reya said your brain went into overload trying to sort it all."

"Yeah, that part I remember. Effing ow," she replied. "What are you doing in here?" she asked.

"Um, I can leave, if you like. Your body was so warm, I lay with you to help cool it down," I explained. "Plus I wanted to be here."

"No, no, don't leave," she replied. "I just need a moment to sort myself." She shook her head as if to un-jumble all the memories that were suddenly there again. "If I'd known all my memories were gonna come back like _that_, I never would have wished so hard for them to return."

"Can you explain to me what happened?" I asked.

"Well at first, it was a bunch of images and some sounds. They all had you in them, so it wasn't such a mess. But then _all_ of my memories returned. Every single second from the day I was born to when Reya saved me. It was like someone had recorded my life on a movie reel, then cut each frame with scissors, shook them up in a box, then dumped them back into my head like confetti. I had to sort them all out, put them in order and make sense of them."

"Wow, I can't even imagine what that feels like," I replied. "Do you… do you still want to be here? With my family… with me?" I asked, looking away from her.

"Of course I do!" she replied, grabbing my chin to make me face her. "I remember what you did in the forest that day; I remember being angry and calling shenanigans. I knew then that you'd lied to me, that you were being stupid and self-righteous. I was ready to forgive you for it then, but gravity and my innate clumsiness intervened and brought me to Victoria's lap. That wasn't your fault."

"How can you be so quick to forgive me?" I asked. "I was abysmal."

"Edward, if you don't stop this self-flagellation, I'm going to slap you. And trust me, it'll hurt. A lot." I rearranged my features, but still felt like I didn't deserve her forgiveness. "Listen to me," she said, looking deep into my eyes. I was instantly lost in the chocolate pools, happy to drown there for eternity. "I love you. I have always loved you, and I always will. Despite you being stupid, I'll always forgive you, too." She could not have chosen more perfect words to express that to me.

"Oh, Trixie," I replied. "I love you so much." And I pressed my lips to hers. She reached up and threaded her fingers in my hair, pulling me close. I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my body flush against hers. She parted her lips ever so slightly and I took the opportunity to explore her mouth for the first time. My tongue sought out hers and danced with it. I'd never kissed her this way before, and now that I knew she was immune to venom and impenetrable to my teeth, I didn't need to use such caution. Kissing her was the most amazing thing ever.

Tentatively I squeezed her tighter, which elicited a pleasurable moan from her. I could hold her tighter, and not worry about crushing her anymore. "As much as I'd love to kiss you all day," she said, each word punctuated with a kiss, "we should probably let everyone else know that I'm alright."

She got up off the bed and stretched out. "Jeez, don't ever let me sleep for two days again," she said. I chuckled and followed her out of the room and down the stairs. Esme was busy in the kitchen making a light meal for her, as she wasn't sure what all she could eat after being unconscious for two days.

"Chicken noodle soup?" Trixie asked, smelling the air as it wafted from the kitchen. I nodded and led her to the bar, pulling out a stool for her.

"How are you feeling, dear?" Esme asked, placing a large bowl of soup in front of my mate.

"Just fine, thank you," Trixie replied. "And I remember you. You've always been so kind and welcoming to me." Esme smiled, her eyes glossing over in unshed tears. "And a perfect motherly figure. Oh my mother! Renee! She's got to be worried sick about me."

"You can still change your mind on whether or not you want to contact your parents, love," I told her. As she ate her soup, she remained silent and pensive as if going over the decision in a million different ways.

"No, it's still better this way. Even if I remember them, I'd still have to abandon them in a few years. I think I should just find a way to let them know I'm okay, though. That they don't have to worry about me anymore or keep searching for me," she said. I asked her how she wanted to do that, suggesting she write them a letter. "That might work, but I was thinking more along the lines of inception."

"Like the movie?" Emmett piped in, coming in from outside. "Welcome back to the land of the living, sis!" he said, ruffling her hair with his massive hand.

"It's basically the same concept, yes," Trixie replied. "I've never done it, but Reya is well-versed in it. She could show me how."

Trixie PoV

I could tell that I'd piqued the interest of, well, everyone when I suggested using inception to tell my parents that I was okay and happy. Everyone filed into the kitchen from wherever they were in the house or yard to hear the story. Reya took over as she was the one with experience.

"I was working in a call center, and was dealing with an over zealous male who wouldn't take no for an answer," she began. "He was harassing me. Coming to my house at all hours of the night, following me around town, stalking me at work. It was ridiculous. I told him subtly, I told him harshly, I let him know in any way I could think of that I wasn't interested. He wouldn't let up. I even went to HR about it. They wrote him up, and gave him a warning, but still he wouldn't stop. So finally I'd had enough.

"I went to his place one night while he was asleep, and I entered his dreams, so to speak. I'm a very strong telepath, so it's rather easy for me to not only read someone's mind, but alter their thoughts as well. This guy was already dreaming of me, so it made it easier. I stepped into myself in the dream and took it over. I made him quite literally scared to death of me. I made the dream so realistic that when he awoke, he was afraid of me.

"The next day at work, he gave me a wide berth, and never said two words to me again. I moved on from that town shortly there after, as I didn't want to _actually_ kill him with fear. I'm sure he was very relieved to never have to see me again. It was a last resort, I didn't want to do that and I don't condone altering people's thoughts. But, of course, Trixie doesn't want to actually scare her parents, but she could give them peace of mind at the very least. Which I think is an acceptable use of this powerful ability."

Everyone weighed in on the matter, offering up their opinions on it. The overall consensus was that if I could simply plant the notion that their daughter was alive, safe, and happy, then it would be sufficient. "You just have to be sure to enter and leave their houses unnoticed," Jasper said. Reya and I both gave him condescending looks. "Okay, okay," he replied putting his hands up. "I guess if we can do it, you can, right?"

So it was decided that in the coming weeks I'd visit Renee in Florida and Charlie in Forks to let them know subliminally that I was okay. I practiced with Jacob as a guinea pig. With his permission of course. I made him crave pancakes once, and when he woke up, he dashed into the kitchen and made enough of them to feed an army. The vampires didn't sleep, so inception was rather hard to do with them, though not impossible from what Reya said. If that was the case, I might have needed to implant the idea in Edward's head that he needed to stop with the guilt. It was driving me nuts.

When I didn't remember him, he was so happy. Then as soon as I told him I remembered everything, he became so sad and depressed. He kept saying that I shouldn't forgive him, that he deserved my ire, anger and even hatred. I couldn't figure out why he couldn't get it through his thick skull that I loved him. I might just have to have it out with him, beat him senseless, then maybe he'd feel like he got a worthy punishment.

One day, he finally went hunting, alone, apparently. Usually he went with Emmett and Jasper, but they both stayed behind. "I could tell he needed some alone time," Jasper explained.

"Yeah, to tear up some trees in frustration," Emmett added. I questioned that. "You know he's so angry at himself for what he did to you, Trix. He won't show the anger here, but it's all he thinks about. He loves you, he loves that you're immortal, that he can't physically hurt you, but still he thinks he's to blame for everything. A bit egotistical if you ask me."

"I agree," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm going after him," I added as I dashed out the door. It was easy to follow his scent, and if I couldn't follow that, surely his wake of disaster was unmistakable. I might need to have another conversation with him about the effects of deforestation.

I snuck up behind him, as he was finishing up feeding on a deer. Deciding he did need a little beating, I shoved him hard, his body flying into a nearby boulder. A loud crash and a lot of rock dust later, he emerged from the cloud and looked at me. "Trixie?"

"You stupid, egotistical, naïve, prick! Do you have any idea how angry I am?" I hissed, slapping him across the face.

"No, but you should be. You should be furious with me," he said, not even bothering to fight back. His voice sounded so weak and defeated. My heart broke for him all over again. I walked over to him, picked him up and slammed him into the rock face again.

"Okay, new question. Do you have any idea _why_ I'm angry?"

"Because of what I did to you, that day in the forest. For leaving you. Because I provoked James into hunting you, then killing him and inciting a similar behavior from his mate, for nearly killing you the first day we met," he replied.

"Wrong," I replied, shoving him deeper into the cliff. "I'm angry because of what you're doing to yourself. You mope around the house all day, looking all sad and depressed, just because I got my memories back. Why aren't you rejoicing? Shouldn't you be happy that I remember how much I love you? Shouldn't you be happy that I remember our first kiss, the first time you told me you loved me, the first time I fell asleep in your arms? Yet you're not. You're miserable for reasons I can't understand.

"You need to get one thing straight, Edward. I. Love. You. Despite your faults, I love you. I want to spend the rest of eternity with you, travel the world, make new memories, and love each other more fiercely than anyone has ever loved someone else. I think I know a way I can prove this to you," I said. I placed my hand on his forehead, and with every muscle in my body concentrated on the task, I pushed all my memories at him. I let him see how I reacted the first time I saw him. He saw what I thought when he first kissed me, when I found out he was a vampire, when he told me he loved me. I showed him how even though he tried to break my heart in the forest that day, I still loved him. I let him see how he was the only thing on my mind while Victoria was carrying me roughly to Peru. I even showed him the dreams I had where I was chasing him, always wanting to catch up. I showed him how I mourned the loss of a boyfriend I couldn't remember.

"Do you see, Edward? Even when I couldn't remember you, I missed you. I loved you. You are my heart. You hold it with you. It's yours to cherish and it's yours to break. Right now, with the way you've been acting, you're breaking it."

"You really do love me," he whispered.

"More than anything," I replied.

"And I love you, Trixie. So much. More than my own life."

"Prove it," I dared him.

* * *

How do you think Edward will "prove it?"

There'll be a differing story arc where Bella gets all her memories back but is still angry at Edward for what he did. I'll be posting that later.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Edward PoV

I froze for a moment. What did she mean by, "Prove it?" She wanted me to prove to her that I loved her. Well, I could think of two ways. Asking her to marry me, or making love to her. Which one did she want? I looked at her carefully, trying to read the intent in her eyes. They were darkening, the golden flecks blending in with the brown and quickly turning darker. She said her eyes turned black when she was angry, which they were when she first came upon me out here. But now, I didn't see any anger in them. I saw… desire? It gave me my answer.

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, I pushed myself out of the boulder she shoved me in and wrapped her in my arms. I pressed my lips to hers and kissed her passionately, pouring every ounce of love I felt for her into my kiss. She responded in kind by wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pulling me flush against her. I could feel the way her every curve fit into my body as if we were two pieces of a puzzle. I traced my fingers up her back and threaded them into the short hair at the nape of her neck. Pulling slightly, her head fell back, allowing me perfect access to her delectable neck.

I pressed kisses along her warm flesh, nipping her skin here and there. Her hands tightened on me, her voice told me she wanted more. I let go of her hair and brought my hand around to her collar bone. I caressed her shoulder and then moved my fingers down to the valley between her breasts. Her button down shirt was quickly torn to shreds leaving her there in her jeans and a very lacy bra. Growling at her, I latched my lips onto her neck again, kissing, biting and licking my way down.

My other hand released her hip and trailed up her side, moving around to cup her full breast. "Yes," she hissed. I squeezed it gently, feeling the weight of it in my hand. Her head rolled back, her hands clutching to me as if I were going to disappear at a moment's notice. Not this time. Not ever again. Gently, I laid her down on the ground, careful not to lay her among the fallen rock from when she pummeled me. I knew it wouldn't hurt her, but it might still be uncomfortable.

She reached around my back and pulled my t-shirt up and over my shoulders. I moved my arms one by one so she could toss the offending fabric aside. I leaned my head down to kiss the valley between her breasts, moving over to one side and licking just along the seam of her bra. Repeating the motion on the other side, I then decided I wanted to see her in all her glory. I licked and nipped my way back to the center, grabbed it with my teeth and tore it away. She groaned in pleasure at my actions, making me smile against her skin.

Leaning back, I drank her in, memorizing every freckle, curve, and inch of her perfect body. "You are so beautiful," I whispered to her. "I've never loved or wanted anything as much as you."

"Yes, Edward. I love you. Make me yours," she replied. I knew for sure at that moment that she wanted me to make love to her. That's how she wanted me to prove to her that I loved her. Before, when she was human, I declined her advances, telling her it was too dangerous, that I might lose control and hurt her. None of these were worries to me anymore. I'd moved beyond my Victorian morals and joined the twenty-first century.

I kissed my way down her torso, stopping when I reached the button of her jeans. I deftly undid the button and the zip, sliding them down her soft, smooth legs, pulling off her socks and shoes in the process. She sat up and undid my jeans, mimicking my movements until we were both laying there in nothing but thin undergarments. Hers matched the lacy bra I'd recently destroyed. "I always pegged you as a boxer-brief man," she said, eying my cotton covered manhood, which had been rather erect since I realized what she wanted. "I'm glad to see I was right."

"And you, Ms. Trixie. Boy shorts? I approve," I told her as my fingers skimmed across her stomach where her skin met her panties. She began breathing more shallowly, her eyes hooded. "God, I want you, Trixie. So much." I tore her panties away at the same moment she reached out and tore away my boxer-briefs. Her eyes widened in delight when she saw me fully exposed. I took that as a compliment.

I leaned down, pressing my bare body against hers. She didn't flinch or shiver from the cold, in fact, I felt my body warming from hers. I kissed her deeply, letting my tongue explore her mouth, and letting hers into mine. I reached between us and felt her folds for the first time. Somehow, she was even warmer there, practically on fire she was so warm, if it weren't for the wetness, she would be on fire. I felt for the sensitive nub and knew I found it when she bucked her hips against me, nearly knocking me into the trees.

"Careful, love," I warned. "You're a lot stronger than me." I never thought I'd say those words unless she'd been turned into a vampire, and it was her newborn year. But I knew she had the draw on me in the strength department. Hell she might have been stronger than Emmett. Back to the task at hand.

I pressed against her clit, rubbing in fast circles until she was writhing beneath me, begging for me to enter her. I couldn't hold out much longer anyway, I ached to be joined with her. "You're so ready for me," I told her, feeling inside her with my fingers. She groaned so loud, the trees shook. It was so hot.

"Please, Edward. I can't wait another second," she begged. I was only too happy to oblige. Positioning myself at her entrance, I pushed in slowly. Her body wrapped around me, holding me inside her like a vice. I came to her barrier, rejoicing that she was still a virgin; I had wondered about that. Gazing into her eyes, I broke through it, not even noticing a hint of a wince on her beautiful face.

I stilled once I was completely sheathed in her, letting her get used to having me there, and keeping myself from climaxing instantly. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to hers, kissing her sweetly. I pulled back out minutely and pushed back in, feeling her muscles begin to contract around me. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"I'm more than alright, Edward," she replied. "You can move. Make love to me, baby." I did as she requested and began a rhythm of moving in and out of her delectable body. Her moans and growls became louder and louder the more we went. A deep rumble was building in my chest, and I could feel her body tighten around me, her fingers dug into my shoulder blades and her legs wrapped around my hips, locked at the ankles, anchoring me to her.

God, she felt amazing. Her body was so warm and wet, and all mine. Her body began contracting around me, convulsing, squeezing me tightly. "Oh god, Edward. I'm going to…" she trailed off into a loud scream as she came, milking my own release from me. She dug her nails into my shoulder blades, actually breaking my skin. It was a gloriously pleasurable pain. I growled her name loudly, biting into her shoulder as my release shot into her. Collapsing on top of her, I released her shoulder from my teeth, noting the slight indentation of my teeth into her flesh, it didn't break it though, for which I was thankful.

"Wow," she breathed. "That was incredible."

"Agreed, my love," I added, pressing kisses to her collarbone and along her neck. "Have I proven it, Trixie?" I asked.

"And then some," she replied. "When I was human, you were always so quick to quash my advances. It made me feel unwanted, sometimes unloved. But now, holy crow, Cullen. Not only do you want and love me, you are amazing in the sack. Not that I have any basis of comparison, but if all sex was like that, no one would ever leave their bedrooms."

"I'd like to stay locked in a bedroom with you, forever," I told her. She smiled.

"As tempting as that sounds, Mr. Cullen, I'm starving. And I'm not about to forage through the wilderness here and find an animal to skewer and roast over a fire on a spit. My tastes are a bit more refined than that." I couldn't help but laugh at her response. A full, whole hearted laugh, which I hadn't done in at least two years.

Trixie PoV

Back at the house, Reya and Jacob were busy digging into huge bowls of the most delicious smelling chili. It smelled spicy, hearty, and unbelievably mouthwatering. This is how I imagine my blood smelled to Edward when he first met me. Completely irresistible. Seeing my expression, Esme offered me a bowl and I took it graciously. Or perhaps not so graciously… I nearly yanked it out of her hands and sucked it down in one gulp, not even bothering with a spoon. I considered that very seriously for a 32nd of a second before deciding not to take the cave person route. Once I sat down, Reya winked at me, knowing full well what Edward and I had been up to. I took a bite and immediately felt like I was in heaven. "Esme, this is fantastic," I told her.

"Don't thank me," she replied. "It's Jasper's recipe. Well, his family's recipe." He was in the corner of the room, smiling shyly at me. I realized at that moment that he'd been keeping his distance from me. Ever since I regained my memories, he'd been giving me a wide berth.

"Jasper, are you afraid of me?" I asked him.

"What? No. Why?" he replied. His monosyllabic responses left nothing to be desired.

"You've been avoiding me like the plague," I told him. "And I can't help but wonder if it's because the last time we saw each other, you tried to eat me." I smirked at him, trying to convey that I wasn't upset with him.

"Um, yeah, well I figured you wouldn't want me around after that. I can't feel your emotions anymore, so I'm kinda flying blind here."

"Welcome to my world," Edward and Alice chorused in unison. Edward had never been able to hear my thoughts, but Alice not being able to see me was new with my transition, along with Jasper's inability to read my mood.

"Well, Jasper. I never blamed you for that. In fact, I told Edward that on that very night. Apparently he never told you what I said, or you didn't believe him. I consider you a brother, Jasper. And brothers don't hide in the corner of the room. Now get over here and tell me the recipe for this chili, or I'll torture it out of you."

"Torture? I'm not sure that'd work, sis," he replied, smiling. Good, I'd gotten through to him. Why was it so easy for him, yet it took me pounding Edward into the side of a cliff for him to get the hint? Jasper sat down next to me and pushed his sleeves up, revealing a plethora of scars all over both arms. As I studied them, I realized they were bite scars. Vampire bite scars.

"What in the hell happened to you?" I asked. Tentatively, I reached out and touched a scar. Instantly I was transported into another time and place. Jasper was there along with a whole ton of red eyed vampires. The air was hot and thick with humidity. A glance at my surroundings told me I was in the south. Either Texas or not far from there. I looked down, my hand still on Jasper's arm, where the wound was fresh, venom still dripping from it. At his feet was a pile of vampire limbs. The vampire that bit him met his end moments after his teeth broke Jasper's skin. To his right was a black haired woman, with a slight olive pallor, definitely not Alice. She cooed at him, stroked his cheek, and was calling him cariño, telling him he did a good job. He regarded her much in the way a dog would regard its master. What the hell?!

I pulled my hand away from his arm and was sent back to the present time, in Alaska, not some random field in the south. "Well that was new," I said.

"What happened? You went still as a statue and your eyes glazed over," Reya stated. "Did you just have your first vision?"

"Yes, I think so," I replied. "But, I don't think it was of the future. It was of the past. Jasper's past." By now everyone filed into the room, curious at my abilities once again. I looked to the television that was on the wall. "Do you mind if I share your memory?" I asked him. He shook his head, confusion written all over his face. "Here, watch," I said. Standing up, I walked to the television and touched the bottom of the screen. The display lit up and within moments, my eyes changed to electric blue, and the vision that I just had was playing on it, exactly as I'd seen it.

"_That's_ what it was like, Jazz?" Alice asked, her eyes full of concern and love for her mate. He nodded shyly. She ran to him and wrapped him up in her arms, needing to comfort him.

"Tactile recollection," Eleazer interjected. I looked at him questioningly. "And you're a technopath, too, it seems." We all turned to him, curious. I knew about the technopath part, but the other one was new. "That's what the ability is called, to touch something and know the story behind it. I believe that's what happened to you when you kissed Edward. While you had touched him before, his kiss was the most intimate connection you had shared, so it triggered that ability to show you all of those memories. Which then in turn unlocked your whole life's worth of history.

"And when you touched Jasper's scar just now, you saw the memory of him getting that scar. This is all comic book stuff, really. Who knew I'd ever be able to apply it to real life situations?" he joked. We all chuckled.

"But this tactile recollection doesn't happen every time I touch someone. I mean I've hugged most of you, and nothing happened. It's only happened when I kissed Edward, and just now when I touched Jasper's scar. How can it be selective?" I asked.

"Perhaps it's related to things that have strong memories. Jasper, I do believe that was your first kill in the vampire wars, yes?" Eleazer asked. Jasper nodded in reply. "And in the case of your kiss with Edward. I think because of the connection you two share, your lips each hold very strong memories. If you were to touch something on each of us that holds a strong memory, such as when I gave Carmen her mating mark, which I'd rather you didn't see, but in theory, that should be one of the strongest memories for either of us."

He was making sense, I had to admit. I had no idea I even had this ability. Perhaps Reya's ability to see the future transformed into this tactile recollection ability in me. DNA can still evolve, even as it was transforming me.

"Are we going to ignore the elephant in the room?" Emmett asked. We were all confused. Well all of us but Edward who was glaring daggers at him. Oh no. "We're not going to discuss the fact that Eddie here isn't a virgin anymore? I mean hello, he's got 'I just got laid' written all over him." I blushed. For the first time in over two years, I blushed. My reaction and Emmett's blurting it out made me angry. Black eyes angry.

"Emmett!" I yelled at him. "Outside. Now." I pointed at the sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard. It wouldn't do any good to kick his ass inside the house. Esme and Carmen wouldn't be pleased with that. "Rosalie, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to beat the shit out of your husband."

"Please do," she replied. "He deserves it." She was glaring at him to, and if she hadn't been standing on the opposite side of the room from him, she'd probably have started the beating already.

"Oh come on, Trix 'n Treats, what're you gonna do. You know you're no match for the gun show," Emmett boasted. He rose up both arms, flexed them, and kissed the muscles. Gross. It made me want to hurl Jasper's delicious chili.

"No match, eh?" I asked. He had retreated to the opposite side of the fire pit. Not a smart location for a vampire to be, when there's a pyropath nearby. Though, I had no intention of killing him. I flicked my finger and he was catapulted into the trees. Then I brought him back through the forest, ensuring he hit as many trees and boulders as possible. I dragged him through mud and dunked him in a pond. Several times. On his way back through the yard, I buried him under ground and burrowed him through, like a mole, to where I was standing. While he burrowed, I assured Esme and Carmen that I'd put the lawn back the way it was.

"Next time you'll think twice before blurting out something like that, won't you?" I asked, innocently. Emmett nodded quickly. "Good." I clapped my hands together, swiping them back and forth as if washing my hands of him, and strode back into the house. "Oh and by the way, Emmett. I was lenient. Next time, you'll have a scar."

* * *

I had to have Bella whoop some ass. Emmett's always so crass and doesn't think before he speaks. Most of the time it's what we love about him, but sometimes he takes it too far.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Laurent PoV

Well, James was dead. Victoria was dead. I was on my own. I didn't care for James much as it was, but he helped pass the time in this immortal existence. After three hundred years, one gets weary of life, even with all the delicious blood out there. The pair had their games, chased and tortured their prey in ways I'd never imagined possible, and then Karma came back and killed them both. Served them right. Humans were food, and they didn't need to be played with in such ways. Though I would miss Victoria's flaming hair.

Perhaps I would do what the Cullens suggested a few years ago and visit their cousins in Denali. I'd roamed the continent enough, perhaps I could find some camaraderie among the people there. I had met one of the sisters in my travels. Irina. She was a goddess. I think she wanted me for her mate, but I couldn't commit yet. I was still mourning Victoria. Yes, she was with James, but he never loved her. He only saw her as a tool. I loved her truly, unrequited, but as deep as the ocean. But now, I could give myself to Irina. At least she could help me pass the time in this miserable existence.

I'd heard that the human pet, Bella, had gone missing. Victoria, I was sure, had something to do with that. Perhaps the Denali coven would have a clue as to what truly happened to the girl. She was appealing, and not just her blood. There was just something about her.

I headed north through the countryside, stopping every so often for a drink. Would the Denalis force me to change my diet to animals? I hoped not, but it would all depend on any connections I made with them in addition to Irina.

I attempted to drain a deer but, it came right back up as soon as I swallowed it. Foul, foul taste. _How do these golden-eyed vampires do it?_ I wondered. Blech. Maybe with some training or assistance, I could accomplish the task. But certainly not on my own. I'd need some kind of incentive, like the promise of an extended session with a certain blonde goddess.

Finally, I arrived, only to drop in on a rather dramatic scene. I hid among the trees so as not to make my presence known right away. Who I presumed were the rest of the Denali coven were present with Irina, along with the Cullens and four new faces that I didn't know. Wait, one of them was the human pet, Bella. So she was alive after all. Though she looked different. Her hair was much shorter and dyed a different color. She appeared to be much stronger, more graceful, and even more confident. It was as if she'd been turned into a vampire, but even from here, I could hear her luscious heartbeat and smell her delectable blood. If she stayed here, sticking to this animals-only diet would be rather difficult.

There was another human female, her pallor not all too different from mine, though it appeared she had piercing ice blue eyes. She too, had a rather inhuman look about her. And there was a russet skinned giant of a man that had to be one of the wolves from La Push that I'd encountered a couple years ago in my search for Bella. They'd nearly killed me, but I was just fast enough to get away.

Lastly there was another human male, he too was rather broad, about the size of Emmett Cullen, only with blond hair, tied back in a ponytail, much like James would wear. His skin was tanned, his muscles large, and he appeared to be battling Edward Cullen. Bella and her human female friend were shouting at the blond man, begging him to stop. I was so confused. Why would a human even think about trying to fight a vampire? Was he insane?

Then the delectable human, Bella, got angry. Really angry. I froze in my tree, not wanting to watch, but unable to look away.

Lukas PoV

I hadn't heard from Trixie or Reya in months. Wondering what they were up to, I tapped into my mental link with them. From what I could tell, they were in Alaska. I'd thought they were attending college in Minnesota, but their home was empty when I'd tried to visit. It looked like they hadn't been there in months. I knew they'd visited Europe during summer break, but they were due back in School in September.

So why Alaska? According to the school's records, they withdrew from the college on short notice. Didn't even give a reason other than "personal." My curiosity piqued, I headed to Alaska to track them down.

It was raining when I arrived. I knew I'd found them as I could smell their scents as well as the scents of the vampires I'd encountered in San Francisco. Trixie had been found by her past, which I knew she never wanted. But why was Reya here too? And why weren't they killing these vampires that so certainly had taken them from their home in Minnesota?

Trixie wanted to be with me, of that much, I was sure. Slowly, I crept up to the house, keeping my pulse as quiet as possible, so as not to alert anyone. I also kept my mind blank so Reya couldn't detect me easily either.

Climbing up the side of the house, I found room that was almost all windows with a balcony that had a hot tub on it. Fancy living for a bunch of bloodsucking, walking corpses. "Oh god, Edward," I heard a voice call out. It sounded an awful lot like Trixie.

Peeking in the window, I was shocked to see _my_ Trixie locked in the throes of passion with a vampire. She rode him like a wild bull at a rodeo, yelling out his name with each thrust. His pale icy hands were planted firmly on her delicious ass, his teeth gritted, a low growl rumbling deep in his chest. What. The. Hell. Was. Going. On?

She and I never got anywhere near that far and here she was giving it to a soulless walking corpse?! In the next instant, Trixie froze, then pulled the sheet up around her. "We're being watched," she whispered to the vampire. How the hell did she know? She jumped off the bed and ran into what I assume was the bathroom. Or maybe the closet. She returned seconds later fully clothed. Closet it was, then.

"Lukas," she hissed. "Backyard. Now." Oh shit. She knew I was here. Reya appeared at the window, glaring at me. Her eyes had gone from blue to ebony in a fraction of a second. She was pissed, too.

In the backyard, I counted twelve vampires, and a tall Native American man standing along with Trixie and Reya. Boy were they all pissed. The male that I caught Trixie with was radiating hatred and rage, his lips curled over his mouth. "Calm down, vamp boy, you ain't got nothin' on me," I taunted him.

That was all the provocation it took. He lunged at me, catching me around the waist and tried to crush my ribs. I laughed out loud, and flung him away from me, throwing him into the fire pit. Too bad there weren't any live coals there. "Lukas!" Trixie yelled. "Touch him again and I will kill you." She was serious. She meant it as a legitimate threat. No bluff, no exaggeration.

"Why?" I asked. "Why _him_? He's a vampire for God's sake. I know you. I know you would never go for someone like that. He's manipulating you. I know he is. I can read his mind."

"Lukas, don't even pretend to know a damn thing about me. And no you can't read his mind. He's a mind reader, too, you twit, and mind readers can't read each other. You know that. I dated you for all of twelve seconds compared to how long I've known this man. I loved him when I was human and the moment I saw him again even though I couldn't remember him, I knew I loved him. I remember everything now. And you don't get to make these decisions for me. You don't get to take him away from me. And before whatever god may or may not exist, I will kill you if you try."

Her eyes were completely black. Not just the irises, but the black had taken over the entire sclera as well. She was an other-worldly being. Not a science experiment like me, she came up from hell simply to kill me. I was convinced of this. I watched as her actual irises turned red. She looked like a demon. In the next second, her hand exploded in flames and she stalked towards me. Anger and rage running through her body in droves.

"Trixie, you don't want to do this," Her leech boyfriend said quietly. "Don't kill him over me. I'm okay. He didn't hurt me." Yeah right, I saw the crack along his face before it healed. Of course I hurt him.

"He wants to kill you, Edward," she replied, hissing through her teeth. "And there's no way I'm letting that happen."

"Lukas," Reya addressed me. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You think you can go up against Trixie? You know she came from me, has all of my powers. And you know I'm stronger than you, and therefore, so is she. Don't start something you can't finish."

"I…I… I'm sorry Trixie," I whispered. She paused momentarily, eyeing me as if I'd just spoken a different language. "I'll leave you alone. I promise." I hung my head in defeat. As angry as I was and as much as I wanted Trixie, she wasn't worth dying for. Especially if she was the one that killed me.

Just then, Trixie caught something in her peripheral vision, she darted away from me in pursuit of whatever she saw. Before a second was up, she was giving chase to another vampire. This one had red eyes, which triggered her reaction. Reya and I had trained ourselves not to have the initial reaction of tear apart and burn the pieces and ask questions later.

This was likely the first red-eyed vampire Trixie had ever seen. And there was nothing we could do to stop her. She caught up to the dreadlocked beast and tore into him. He didn't know what hit him. Within a minute he was a pile of smoldering ashes. Bella came back to herself, her eyes lightening back to the lovely chocolate brown I adored, the whites restored. She looked down at the pyre and then to the rest of us in panic. "What the hell did I just do?" she asked.

"It looks like you killed Laurent," a burly vampire said. "Good thing we didn't like him much, anyway."

"What?!" a blonde vampire cried. "No!" She ran to the ashes, collapsed beside them and cried and cried. I knew tears couldn't fall from their eyes, but she was giving any Oscar winner a run for their money in the emotional reaction department.

"Irina," Trixie whispered. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened. I couldn't stop myself; I wasn't even thinking. I saw his red eyes and knew he had to die."

"He came back for me," Irina whispered. "He wanted me. And you took him from me."

"I didn't mean to, I couldn't help it," Trixie said defensively, holding her arms out with her hands up.

Irina stood up and glared at Trixie. "You're going to pay for what you've done," she threatened. And with that she was gone, bounding through the trees and up the mountain before anyone even thought to go after her.

Trixie PoV

"What have I done?" I said as I fell to my knees. In the next instant, cold arms were wrapping around me. Edward pulled me into his lap. He stroked my hair and cooed quietly into my ear, trying to calm me.

"Well, now you've found out the hard way what happens when we see a red-eyed vampire," Reya said. "I'm sorry it had to be someone that Irina was apparently close to. I don't know what's going to happen."

"I do," Alice interjected. "She's going to the Volturi. She's going to tell them about you two. I can't see how they'll react until they've actually heard her words and Aro has seen her memories, but I can bet they won't be happy."

"I have no idea what came over me. I just saw him from all the way across the field and the next thing I knew, I was standing next to the ashes."

"That's how it happens," Reya explained. "It's similar to a newborn vampire catching a human's scent for the first time. They lose control and attack. They don't even know what they've done until they see the lifeless corpse at their feet. Am I right?" she asked, looking around at all the vampires. Everyone nodded.

"It's a compulsion that we have to train ourselves to ignore, Trixie. Just like these guys had to train themselves not to give into human blood, but to instead satiate their thirst with animals instead. You have to train yourself to hesitate just long enough to find out if the vampire in question is a threat. If so, by all means tear and burn away, but if not, walk away."

After what had just happened, I wasn't entirely sure I was capable of merely walking away from a red-eyed vampire ever. "I'll help you," Edward promised. "In any way I can. We all will."

"And now we all know that if we ever slip up on this diet again, Trixie will kill us all," Emmett joked.

"What'll we do about the Volturi?" I asked. "Won't they or anyone they send here have red eyes? I'll massacre their whole coven before they even blink an eye."

"Let's just hope it doesn't come to that," Carlisle stated.

"As long as you avoid eye contact, you won't be triggered. And we'll all be prepared to help you if we need to. I would have stopped you this time if I'd known it wasn't just some random vamp in the woods."

And so began the training. We started with pictures of red eyed vampires. We went through three reams of photos and countless toner cartridges before I hesitated before tearing the photo to shreds. Once that was done, we had Jasper put in a pair of bright red contacts. Edward, Emmett and Reya held me back while I thrashed wildly trying to get to Jasper. I might have electrocuted Edward and Emmett a time or two, trying to get them off of me.

This intrigued Kate, as she had a similar power to that. She was able to make one think that they were being shocked to high heaven just with a touch of her skin. Where mine was actual electricity, her power was all in the mind. It didn't actually cause any harm. Edward and Emmett had to lick the burns on their arms for the venom to heal away the marks. And they both had scars.

Emmett wore his proudly, like a badge of honor or a badass tattoo, which is kind of what it looked like. Blackened flesh in the shape of a bolt of lightning. I felt bad about both of them, but hurting Edward tore me apart. I wouldn't even attempt the training any more for a week after that happened.

Edward kept assuring me that he was fine, that it was nothing, and that he was glad I left a mark on him. "It shows the world that I'm yours," he said. "And if any one asks, Emmett copied me and got a tattoo," he added. That was the first time I giggled since killing Laurent.

Edward and I hadn't made love since Lukas walked in on us either. I was too distraught by what I did and too worried about the Volturi to even think about that. He assured me that it was okay, that he'd waited for me for over a century, taking a break from being physical was not a big deal. But I could see how it affected him. He'd be agitated more easily, he'd attack his prey more aggressively when I watched him hunt, and he was pulling away from me slowly.

I'd be damned before I let some dreadlocked red-eyed bloodsucker ruin what I had with Edward.

"Let's get outta here for a while," I said to him one evening. "Let's go and be alone for a few days. I found a cabin pretty far out in the woods one day. I'm pretty sure it's abandoned. We could go there."

"Really?" he asked, his eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas Morning.

"Yeah, just you and me. I need to rediscover you, Edward." I looked at him from under my lashes, my intent clear. He swallowed loudly and before I realized it he'd pulled me out of the window and into his arms. We jumped off the balcony to the ground below and took off like a shot towards the cabin.

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This is all I have completed thus far, so I need to get back to writing ;) I hope to have the next chapter up in a few days. Thank you for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

I was feelin' the flow today, so here's chapter 17 already. I need to get back to updating my other stories, so there likely won't be a new chapter for another week or so. Enjoy this one while you can ;)

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Chapter 17

Edward PoV

"I need to rediscover you, Edward," she said. Oh hell. I grabbed her in my arms, ran out to the balcony and jumped to the ground. We took off at a high sprint on the way to this cabin she found. Within a couple hours, we arrived, and she started a fire in the hearth inside. Not that either of us needed the heat, but it gave us nice ambience at the very least.

The rooms were already prepared for our arrival. "You did more than just stumble upon this place, didn't you?" I asked.

"Well, it was a mess in here. I had to clean it up and stock it. I prepared it because I figured you'd do exactly what you did and yank me out of the house without packing any supplies. I don't know about you, but a girl's gotta eat at some point." She winked at me.

"You thought of everything then," I complimented. She nodded as she stepped into my arms, allowing me to enfold her in my embrace. "Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

"Why don't you show me?" she challenged.

And that's exactly what I did. I laid her down on the bearskin rug in front of the fire place. Yes, it was _that_ cliché in this little cabin. I adorned her body with kisses, removing pieces of clothing as I went. Before long, she was completely naked and on display for me. I could see the sinews and tendons that showcased her immense strength, yet her skin was still so soft against my lips, and against my body. Her temperature had increased a few degrees, making her a walking inferno. Quite literally I'd learned.

We made love on the bear skin rug for hours, only breaking for her to eat something or use the facilities. Apparently several orgasms in a row made a human woman have to go to the bathroom rather urgently. Who knew? Eventually, Trixie was tired enough to go to sleep, so while she warmed a mug of milk for hot cocoa, I turned down the bedding for her.

"Trixie, I have a question," I began as she entered the room, wearing nothing but the mug in her hands. She smiled at me and handed me the mug as she slipped into the bed. Taking the mug from me, she patted the space next to her and invited me in. "Do you think we could defeat them?"

"Defeat who?" she asked, playing innocent.

"The Volturi," I answered.

"Oh yes, absolutely. Reya and I are immune to vampires' special powers, and we can torch them with a flick of our fingers. We could decimate the vampire population in a matter of hours, I'd imagine. Especially now that I know how crazy easy it is to do so. Not to toot my own horn, but I can do a LOT that you can't, dear."

"I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope they decide to leave us in peace, but I need to know that in case they do decide to attack, that at least you can save yourself."

"Edward, I don't have to save myself. I can't die. You can. And I would never, ever let that happen. Rest assured; if the Volturi prove hostile, I can at least show them what I could do. And then, realizing I'm a huge threat and someone they don't want on their bad side, they'll leave us be."

"I hope so," I agreed.

We spent the next few days at the cabin, reading books, making lots of love, cuddling, talking, and more sex. One night as I watched my beautiful mate sleep, she wrenched awake screaming bloody murder. "Trixie, what's wrong?"

"They're coming," she answered. "They're coming here."

"Who is?"

"The Volturi," she whispered. "All of them."

"You've had a vision?" I asked.

"Yes, Reya said they could start any time, and usually come in dreams. What a hell of a way to start."

"How do you know it was a vision? Maybe it was a dream?" I suggested.

"No, I know what dreams feel like, and that was no dream. Besides. Does Aro have black slicked hair, ruby eyes, papery white skin, and a sinister grin on his face all the time?" I nodded, surprised. "How could I have known that if it was just a dream?"

She bolted off the bed and into the closet where she threw on the first outfit she found. I dressed just after her and once we extinguished the fire in the hearth, we were on our way back to the house. I could hear Alice's thoughts when we were in earshot, and she'd had a similar vision to Trixie's dream. "I wish I could see when they'll get here. With Jacob's wolfy interference, and my inability to see Reya or Trixie, I can't nail down a timeline."

"We have two days," Trixie said, once we arrive. "I had a vision about them. They'll be here day after tomorrow. I saw a calendar in the vision. We're sitting in the kitchen when we smell them. It's just after noon."

"Jacob can't be here," Reya said, realizing the gravity of Trixie's words.

"You're right. The Volturi do not honor truces with his kind," Carlisle agreed. "But Reya, I can't ask you to stay here, while he's away. Being separated from your imprint, even for a short time when there's that much danger afoot could be very damaging to both of you."

"I'm not leaving you," Jacob growled. "We're here together. Forever, Reya. If you and Trixie are really as powerful as you say, then the Volturi won't even be able to touch us, let alone kill me. I love you Reya, and I trust you. I know you won't let them hurt me. Just like I won't let them hurt you."

"Reya and I need to be at the front," Trixie said. I was about to protest, but she shushed me with her finger to my lips. "We're the ones that can stop any of them from advancing on any of you. Once they realize they're at a huge disadvantage, they'll slow down and hear what we have to say."

"And how do you plan to do this?" Eleazer asked. "Telekinesis? It might not work on a strong vampire."

"Yes it would," Reya retorted. "But no, not telekinesis. That would stop them surely, we could manipulate their bodies to our will, but it wouldn't scare them as much as I what I have in mind. Eleazer, do me a favor and run over there to that tree." He ran to the tree she pointed to and turned, awaiting further instructions. "Okay, now come on back." He gave her a quizzical look, which remained on his face for the next several seconds. He made no attempt to move, and just stood there. It wasn't until the cloud of thoughts around me cleared that I could hear his mental struggle. He was trying to move. Trying with all his might, but his body would not cooperate with his commands. Like there was some kind of disconnect.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity but was only a few minutes, whatever was keeping Eleazer from moving stopped and he shot forward with all the force he was mustering and catapulted across the lawn. "We'll have to use our telekinesis to control that release, but I think that'll work, don't you?" Reya said, somewhat smug.

"What did you do?" Carlisle asked.

"Cut off communication from his brain to the rest of his body, effectively paralyzing him. It takes a lot of concentration on my part and Trixie and I won't be able to do much other than that, as it's very draining on our minds and bodies, but my hope is that it'll be enough to at least give them pause before ripping you all to shreds just for knowing us."

For the next two days, Reya, Trixie and Lukas all practiced until they nearly passed out from exhaustion. Lukas stuck around because he felt guilty for putting Trixie right in Laurent's line of sight. If he hadn't provoked her, there was a small possibility that the rest of us would have seen Laurent coming and could have stopped her. I felt that she would have attacked him regardless, but I let him live in his guilt. He deserved it. Now the Volturi were bearing down on us because of his actions. By the end of the second day, all three super-humans as Emmet called them, were each individually able to stop all of us vampires from moving for an indefinite period of time. "This is not all that dissimilar from Alec's gift," Eleazar observed once he came out of the stupor for the umpteenth time.

"What's his gift?" Trixie asked.

"He can cut off all your senses," Eleazar explained. "His gift creeps out of his hands like a smoke, only it's not visible to most vampires. I can see it because I can see gifts; Edward can because he can see into Alec's mind. You may or may not be able to see it. The only way we'll know is if he tries to use it on us. The smoke-like substance creeps across the ground and once it reaches the intended victim, all senses are cut off. It's as if floating in the abyss. With your gift, we retain our sight and hearing, but our brains are unable to communicate any commands to the rest of our bodies.

"If you do that to just Aro alone, it will give them enough pause to listen to us and hopefully refute whatever Irina told them. Even if Aro reads her thoughts, he may have a skewed perception of what happened with Laurent. Especially since she didn't even see what happened until he was already a pile of ashes. Just make sure you avert your eyes, Trixie. While you've made leaps and bounds in your control over seeing red eyes, I don't know how you'll fare when there are dozens of them."

Alice's eyes glazed over, telling us she was having a vision. Watching her mind, I saw the vision along with her. Aro, Caius, Marcus, their wives, the guard, Irina, and a handful of witnesses were coming through the forest, heading straight for us. It seemed as though this day was long-coming, as if he was waiting for a reason to rid the world of the Denali and Cullen Covens. Now that he had us both at the same place, picking us off would be child's play.

They neared enough that I could hear their thoughts, soon. Aro had no idea of the range of my ability. He was under the false assumption that I had to be in the same room or that my range did not go beyond my physical hearing range. Thankfully for me, he was mistaken. He wanted to obtain the super-humans and use them to carry out his bidding. He felt that he had rights to them because he owned the company that created them. He knew they had to be the creations of Zenexis even though the company never reported to him on the success or failure of their experiments. He had no idea that Reya and Lukas completely obliterated Zenexis and all their research when they tried to kill their family.

"The Volturi own Zenexis," I whispered. Reya, Lukas, and Trixie all started growling. "They don't know that it doesn't exist anymore. With their perception of time, it's not odd for them to not hear any updates in this long. Though upon seeing you in Irina's thoughts, Aro is wondering why Zenexis hasn't told them about you."

"There was no end to the amount of shell corporations beyond Zenexis. We took out as many as we could, but now that I know it all lead back to the blasted Volturi… we could have taken them out years ago," Reya hissed.

"Well, no time like the present," Lukas offered. "They're toast as far as I'm concerned."

"Hold on now," Carlisle interjected. "If we completely obliterate the Volturi, who will that leave to take over the ruling class of vampires? We need leadership and authority. Without the Volturi or a similar governing body, The Vampire world would implode. Rogue vampires would kill humans with zero discretion, other vampires could try and take over as the leaders, and war could ensue. I'm not saying that the way the Volturi run the vampire world is perfect nor ideal, but without them, chaos would reign."

"Okay, so we need to change the Volturi's ideal," Trixie offered. "If we can convince them that Reya, Lukas and I are no real threat to the vampire population but could be if they threaten us, we could have quite a say in how they conduct their business. It seems to me that they're a shoot now ask questions later type organization and that just doesn't fly with me."

We all fell silent again as we waited for the Volturi to cross the horizon. Within a few minutes, they were there, moving soundlessly and effortlessly across the ground. The three brothers were in the middle, with Renata, Aro's personal shield just behind them. I noticed Felix, Demitri, Alec, and Jane taking up the flanks of the brothers, followed by a litany of other guards which I had no names for. On the outskirts of the line were a few nomads that the Volturi had gathered to witness the justice that was about to be served. They had some idea that they could defeat Trixie, Reya, and Lukas. They were in for a hell of a surprise.

"Carlisle and Eleazar. We address you as the leaders of your covens," the trio all chorused in unison. I could hear their individual voices, but they spoke together so perfectly that it also sounded like one voice. Like one very powerful voice. "We have received allegations that you are harboring not only a child of the moon, and have a treaty with a group of them, but that there are human creatures among you capable of destroying vampires. We have reason to believe that you have amassed such a grouping to take over the Volturi. What say you to these accusations?"

Before Carlisle or Eleazar could respond, Jane unleashed her power on them, making them writhe on the ground in agony. Her power had grown. Until recently she could only inflict her gift upon one victim at a time, but she was hitting two. Trixie moved from my side and stepped forward, blocking Jane's line of sight. Her gift was limited to her needing to maintain visual contact with her target. With Trixie standing in the way, my father and uncle were released. "You'd stop that if you knew what was good for you," Trixie hissed, keeping her eyes on the ground rather than making contact with anyone across the field from us.

"Who are you to make demands of the Volturi, girl?" Caius hollered.

"Seriously?" Lukas said, laughing. "The guy has no clue." He was nearly rolling on the ground laughing. It was all the rest of us could do to keep from laughing with him.

"What did Irina tell you?" Eleazar asked. Upon hearing her name, she appeared from behind Felix. She'd been hiding. Her face was set, though, determined in her decision to rid our coven of the inhuman scum. She had liked Trixie a lot before, now, because she killed Laurent, she hated her.

"Irina showed me that this young girl killed her mate in cold blood, with no provocation, and for no reason," Aro answered, pointing an accusing finger at Trixie.

"I did kill him with no provocation and for no reason," Trixie answered, her voice full of remorse. "I feel terrible about it and I wish every moment that I could take it back. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of what I am is an undeniable compulsion to kill vampires. The red eyes set us off, like a bull and a matador with a red cape. My sister and her brother have been able to train themselves to resist the urge to kill red-eyed vampires, but Laurent was the first one I'd ever seen. Until then, the Cullens and the Denali were the only vampires I'd been exposed to, and we all know they don't kill humans. The situation was tragic and I will forever regret taking his life.

"Irina, I am truly sorry. I know it will not matter how many times I tell you or how many ways I express my sorrow, I can't bring him back for you. In the days since his death, I have gone to great lengths to control my urges. I have had some success, but do not trust myself at this moment, which is why I have averted my gaze from your eyes. I have no wish to kill any vampire unless said vampire has directly threatened me or my family.

"You have done just that, especially by unleashing Jane's power on my father and uncle, but yet here I stand, still looking away so as not to kill you. And I could. Very easily. You've already learned that Jane's power doesn't work on me, and neither will anyone else's. I can set you all on fire with a flick of my finger or burst your bodies into millions of pieces, yet I choose not to. And might I add there are three of us. Even if you could take me out, which you cannot, there are two more just like me waiting to finish the job.

"These covens have no desire for your power, or any power. We simply want to be left alone and allowed to live in peace. If you cannot give us that, then we will be forced to take action against you. I don't think you'll like the outcome of that scene. I don't respond well to threats and I suggest you do not continue to issue them."

They had no way of knowing if Trixie was telling the truth unless they read someone's mind. Irina had only seen a snippet of what Trixie could do and did not witness Laurent's actual death; only saw the smoldering ashes afterwards. "How do we know that you possess such power?" Aro asked. "Unless we have a demonstration?" he added.

"How shall you like to test me?" Trixie asked. "Would you have me look into _your_ eyes, Aro, and see what happens?" Her head turned infinitesimally, appearing to be staring at Aro's chest. "Or yours, Caius?" she continued, turning her head again towards Caius. "No, you wouldn't dare risk your own life, now would you? No, you'd pick one of your pawns, one of these witnesses you've called forth to see your 'justice' at work. Is one of them guilty of some treachery? Has one of them wronged you in such a way that they cannot be allowed to go on living?" The silence on the other end of the field told her she'd hit the mark. I listened carefully and one of the "witnesses" was on trial for killing injudiciously. He was sentenced to be torn apart and burned, but Aro thought it best to bring him with on this crusade to see what would befall him at Trixie's hands.

"And you seem to think that by telling me this that I'll kill them for you? You forget that I have free will. I am neither vampire nor human and therefore do not fall under your laws. There is literally nothing you can do to me. There is no way to kill me, trust me, I know. And I can protect myself and my family without even thinking about it and yet you continue to threaten us as if you think you stand a chance. It's not a bluff, nor a lie. I really am this powerful. And I don't think you actually want to find out."

"You insipid girl," Caius bellowed. "We do not fall to threats of humans, especially when they cannot be backed up by fact. Everything that Irina has seen of you can be artificially created with special effects that humans have made. I have every reason to believe that you are nothing but a simple human; giving us all a show, a façade as it were because you wish to be something more than human and your precious coven that you say you love refuses to change you. You're hardly worth the time we spent to come here. Felix, kill them all," he ordered.

After Caius' monologue, the ground began to rumble. Within seconds, there was a deep crevasse between our covens and the Volturi. The crack deepened, revealing a river of molten lava far beneath the surface. Had Trixie literally opened up the earth or was something else happening? Her stance hadn't changed, she hadn't moved at all since she spoke, yet this was happening. I spared a glance at Reya and at Lukas. Both of them were gaping at Trixie. Clearly this was something new.

"Kill us all?" Trixie hissed. "I told you I didn't respond well to threats, Caius. I also told you that I cannot be killed. Clearly you didn't listen." She lifted him up off the ground, telekinetically and left him hovering over the crevasse, slowly lowering his body into it. He got closer and closer to the lava and began screaming for aid. The rest of the Volturi were trying to cross the opening, but Reya and Lukas were keeping them immobile. "I told you. You cannot defeat me. Not now or ever. There will never be a time when my guard is down, when I will be ill-prepared. I will always see you coming." She flung Caius out of the crack and back onto his side of it.

If my dead heart was still beating it would have stopped the moment she lifted herself off the ground and flew to the other side. She stood directly in front of Aro and stared him in the eye. Through his eyes, I saw hers turning colors. First they changed to blue when she pulled several lightning bolts from the sky and had them strike the ground all around the Volturi, but never hitting them. Then to red when she had her hands burst into flames and let the flames lick up and down her bare arms, showing that she couldn't be burned.

"Still think these are special effects?" she asked, turning to Caius, looking him dead in the eyes. I could see her body tense up, ready to attack, but she remained in control. The same when she looked at Aro. "They're real flames, Caius. Care to find out the hard way?" She reached her hand out, concentrating the flames into it and let them burn high and hot. I could feel the heat from where I stood. She made sure not a single speck of the flames left her hands and touched one of them. Only one spark would set a vampire ablaze, burning them to ash within seconds.

"You'll kill us?" Caius demanded.

"I don't want to. If I killed you, then who would be the ruling class? Me? No thank you. I told you, I have no desire for power. I didn't ask for the ones that I have and I don't abuse them. All I want is for me and my family be left to live in peace, we have no quarrel with you. It is you who brought the fight to us. You may not have been fully informed of what you were up against, but now you know. Oh, and for your information, Zenexis no longer exists."

Aro growled and lunged for Trixie. She was caught slightly off guard and thrown to the ground. He came at her again but she stopped him mid attack, suspending him in the air. "This wasn't your plan was it, Aro. You planned for us to be unstoppable vampire killing machines with a master. But yet, we cannot be controlled. Not by you, not by Zenexis, not by anyone. I've given you many chances today, Aro. And here again, you are still alive. I wonder if I should make an example of you." With a flick of her finger, Aro's head was no longer connected to his body.

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Oh snap... is that the end of Aro? How will the rest of the Volturi react? Is an all-out-war about to happen?


	18. Chapter 18

I'm back at it, folks! Here's the resolution to the cliffy I left you all on last time... hope it meets your expectations! :D

SM is the stage; I am merely a player.

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Chapter 18

Trixie PoV

I'd had enough of the Italian scum and their greedy smug ways. I had no intention of fully killing Aro, just needed him to shut up for the moment. A vampire's head could be reattached, I was told. Jane tried to unleash her power on me and when it didn't work, she directed it at Edward. Well, I wasn't having that, so I quickly sent her a dose of her own medicine. Edward rose up, relieved of the pseudo-pain. Jane was screaming in agony, her brother knelt over her form begging me to release her. I did, with grace and she sat there staring at me, but not using her power again. I very nearly set her ablaze and sent fire at every single one of them. She was lucky that I had practiced my control so aggressively.

"That was very stupid, Jane. You'd do better to not test my patience, nor my anger. What you just did would have justified me unleashing my wrath upon the lot of you. You've seen what I can do. Why would you test me?

"Now that Aro's done talking, what do the rest of you have to say for yourselves?" Caius went to speak, but I silenced him by forcing his mouth closed. He was hemming and hawing trying to yell at me, but couldn't open his lips. "I mean the rest of you, the wives, guards and witnesses." I heard someone clear his throat behind me.

Sparing a glance at my family, I saw Eleazar tap his temple very subtly. I opened up my mind to him to see what he wanted to silently convey. _Chelsea, the one with the dark curly hair, has a gift. She can sense, create, strengthen, weaken, or break bonds between vampires. She can't break ours because we're too closely bonded with love, but most of the guard members are only with the Volturi because of her gift. Take her out and you'll get truthful answers from the lot of them._ I nodded and turned to the vampire in question.

I delved into her mind and searched for where her gift was kept. Sure to keep up appearances, I glanced around the group, making eye contact with as many as I could. None of them could know that I was focusing my energy on Chelsea specifically. To them, I was simply waiting for someone to speak. It appeared that she even had the witnesses wrapped around her finger.

Chelsea pictured her gift as a length of rope or ribbon and a pair of scissors or a bottle of glue. For the bonds she strengthened, she tied the people together with the rope and poured the glue over it, making it as permanent as her gift would allow. I saw that bond between both Caius and Marcus to Aro. Curious, that. And for the ones she broke, she simply had to cut through the ropes with scissors. To her mind, I made the rope, scissors, and glue disappear. I couldn't actually remove her gift, but I could make her believe without a doubt that she no longer had it, and if that was the case, any and all bonds that she had created or broken would go back to the way they were before her meddling.

As soon as I was finished, several things happened in quick succession. Chelsea began shrieking about her gift being gone. Felix, Demetri, and Afton circled around her and swiftly tore her apart. She was a pile of ash in seconds. Other vampires' minds cleared and they began yelling at the two remaining Volturi leaders about how they'd been bamboozled for centuries. Yes, someone actually used the word bamboozled. And he was Russian, so it sounded even funnier coming out with that thick accent.

Then, Marcus grabbed the torch from Felix' hand. He turned to the twitching body at my feet and set it on fire. I watched Aro's body be reduced to ash in seconds. I glanced at his head. He was still alive in a manner of speaking, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water and his eyes darting all over the place, looking anywhere for some support. Even Caius, who I thought truly followed him was glaring at him in hatred. Marcus gestured to the head and asked for it with a smile. I handed it over gladly. Clearly there was no longer a body to attach it to. "This is for Didyme you bastard," he hissed, throwing Aro's head onto the smoldering pyre.

"Marcus! What in god's name have you done?!" Sulpicia screamed. She bent down over her husband's remains and began sobbing tearlessly. I noticed she was careful not to touch the embers; clearly she didn't love him so much that she wanted to follow him into the afterlife. Edward told me once that if a mate dies, the other half of the pair is usually quick to follow. Clearly, Sulpicia was not Aro's mate.

"He killed her. He killed Didyme and kept me loyal for over a thousand years," Marcus said in a monotone voice. He was devoid of all emotion. I realized that Chelsea had been keeping him tethered to the Volturi, likely as a result of Didyme's death. Didyme, I assumed, was his mate. If he knew all along that Aro killed him, and was forced to stay loyal to him as a result of a vampire's gift, that was the cruelest form of torture I could imagine. If someone killed Edward and then forced me to stay loyal to them for a thousand years, I'd go bat-shit crazy the first moment I could.

"Miss Bellatrix," he addressed me. "I beg of you. Kill me. Please. For a thousand years, the only things that kept me going were Chelsea's bond and my revenge. Now that the bond is broken and I've exacted my revenge, I have nothing left to exist for, and have waited for death to claim me for centuries. All I want is to be with my mate again. Even if it's in hell."

I peeked into his mind and learned that he was sincere. His thoughts were centered on his mate. From what I could tell, she was a beautiful and compassionate woman. Sort of the female version of Carlisle. She regarded human life with value, even though she needed their life's blood to survive. Every kill she made, she thanked the human for their sacrifice and prayed over them. Aro found this a weakness and killed her for it, but played it off that she was consorting with the Romanians. I made a mental note to look into them. If they got word that the Volturi had lost power, they may try to reclaim it and something told me that'd be even worse than the Volturi.

"Let it be known that I am granting Marcus' wish, not killing him in cold blood," I announced to the guard, the witnesses, and my family. After getting everyone's nod of approval, I asked for Marcus' hand and held it in mine while I let my body heat concentrate in my palm and burst into flames. He whispered, "Thank you," just before his body was rendered to ashes.

I was having no trouble calming the urge to kill the red-eyed vampires. Though, with each vampire that died before me, my level of relief climbed minutely. I didn't know if it was my family's faith in me that gave me the power or if all the training really did its job. There wasn't time to think about that. Caius began incessantly tugging at the hem of my shirt, silently begging to speak. Honestly, he was acting like a toddler. I released him from my "spell" as I called it and he breathed a thank you. "Chelsea had me bound, too," he began. His entire demeanor changed. He was no longer the bitter old bat with a constant grimace on his face; he looked his age, meaning the age he was turned, which had to be no more than eighteen.

"Marcus was always devoid of emotion, simply going through the motions of existence, but not actually living," Caius began. I noticed even his voice sounded different. "I on the other hand lived in my bitterness towards Aro. I felt it, always simmering beneath the surface, but could never act upon it.

"Didyme was my best friend. If she hadn't found her mate in Marcus, I've no doubt she and I would have been happy together," he continued. His wife hissed in the background. "Quiet, woman!" he yelled to her. I stifled a giggle. No love lost there. I wondered if Chelsea had bound them together as well. I didn't look for that connection when I saw into her gift. "Aro was her own brother and he killed her. I watched it happen. The moment I went to inform Marcus, he had Chelsea bind me to him, forcing me to keep his secret. Marcus did figure it out but Chelsea got to him, too. For a thousand years I've lived in my hatred of Aro, unleashing it on everyone around me but him.

"And now you've released me from that hell. I thank you for that, Bellatrix. Aro is gone, and with him his greed for power. I have all the power I need, and no desire for more. He liked to collect gifted vampires, and bind them to the Volturi with Chelsea. Now that they're both gone, everyone who serves the Volturi shall be there voluntarily, and only as long as they wish to be. If any of the Cullen or Denali covens wish to join us, you will be welcomed. Especially you, young warrior," he said addressing me. "You would be a wonderful asset, but if you decline, that is your right and we will not come after you, as has been our custom as of late." He spat on Aro's ashes. Awesome.

"Felix, Demetri, Afton, Renata, Jane, and Alec," he continued, addressing the guard. "Would you like to remain with the Volturi?" I looked at each of the vampires he queried and guessed at their answers. Jane and Alec had never known anything but the Volturi, they would likely stay. Felix seemed to have a bit of a wild side, so did Demetri; they may stay but ask for a few years vacation first. Afton was the wild card. Chelsea had him bound to her as her mate, yet he was the first to assist in tearing her apart. Clearly he wasn't happy with her.

"My sister and I will stay," Alec declared. Jane agreed with a nod. No surprise there. They joined hands and stepped up behind Caius, taking up his flanks. Caius had no tangible gift that I could discern, so Jane and Alec would be his personal protection.

Renata strode forward. "I wish to remain in the states with this family," she declared. Well, how 'bout them apples? "I've seen the way they are with each other even in the past few minutes. It's real love. Not just between the mated pairs, but with the other members. Carlisle and Esme love their children as though they are their real children. I would love nothing more than to have that. Bellatrix, may I stay here, with you? I will surely convert to the animal blood diet."

I turned to my family to see how they weighed in on that. I did expect for many of the guard to leave the Volturi; I did not expect for any of them to want to join us. Everyone voiced their approval of Renata joining us. As my eyes passed over everyone's I noticed that Lukas was staring at Renata as if seeing the sky for the first time. I guessed that was another problem taken care of. Renata leapt across the ravine I created and stood next to Lukas, smiling at him, with sparkling eyes. Yep, problem taken care of indeed. I turned back to the Volturi. The witnesses were visibly nervous, each of them stepping back from me ever-so-slowly.

Felix stepped up next. "I would like to remain a member of the guard but only on an as needed basis. For the past five hundred years, I've only seen the walls of Volterra, the inside of a plane, a car, and then the destruction site of whatever vampire I was ordered to kill. I wish to see a bit more of the world and perhaps find my mate." Caius readily agreed, assuring Felix that he can come and go from Volterra as he pleased, and they would try to keep his assignments to a minimum.

Demetri's request was similar to Felix's, but he kept glancing at me throughout his whole schpiel, making me curious about his thoughts. I glanced at Edward and he was glaring daggers at Demetri. Okay, clearly Demetri wanted me. Well, that wasn't going to happen, but I would admit to being flattered. I looked to the vampire in question and shook my head at him. His head dropped in defeat, though I had a feeling he'd be back.

Afton was all that remained of the inner guard. The rest had more or less voiced that they'd stay in Italy, but come and go as they pleased. "I'll stay," he said. "I hated Chelsea, but I liked being part of the Volturi. I have a gift, too, which I successfully kept from Aro all these years." He stepped forward and I noticed his body shimmer slightly, but nothing else happened. Everyone around me was gasping in shock. He stepped right up next to me and took on the same stance that I did. I was incredibly confused.

"Whatever gift you have must be a mental one, because I can't see it," I stated.

"He looks exactly like you," Caius explained. "Down to the scar on your arm, identical."

Afton began speaking and evidently, he sounded like me as well. "I can create the illusion of shape shifting," he said. "I look and sound like whomever I am imitating. But as you said, it's only a mental illusion; those with a mental shield or those like you would not be affected by it. It comes in handy if I need to blend in with humans as it takes away the sparkling." That surprised me. He could completely go incognito in the human world. "I never told Aro about my gift, and was careful to never touch him. Not even Chelsea knew about it, and I joined the guard after Eleazar left, so no one ever knew but me.

"It is how I got loads of insider information though. I couldn't go against the bond that Chelsea created for me, but by posing as her several times when she was out and about, I was able to prevent certain bonds from occurring in the past. I played it off to Aro that the person must have too strong a bond with his or her coven-mates and I couldn't bind them to the Volturi. Marcus was in on it, so Aro never questioned it when Marcus confirmed it.

"As I said, I will stay with the Volturi, on one condition. I will be another leader. Not a second in command or a member of the guard, but one of the Volturi leaders, right beside Caius. I have a regard for human life and will ensure that they are not farmed for blood as we are currently doing. We shall kill only the dregs of society, and cease preying upon innocents and children." Caius readily agreed, happy to share the throne with Afton.

And just like that the Volturi still remained, with Caius and Afton leading it, Jane and Alec as their second in command, and Felix and Demetri on an ad hoc as needed basis. Heidi would remain as the fisher but her role was to acquire criminals, rather than innocent humans. It perhaps wasn't the most ideal situation, but it was leagues better than the previous one. Aro was greedy and paranoid; not a good combination. I agreed to remain in contact with Caius and keep an eye on the covens of the Americas.

My family said they'd assist. The rest of the guard and witnesses left the field in a hurry, quick to be as far away from me as possible. Caius thanked me for my leniency and promised that peace would reign for eternity between the Volturi and my family. Before he left, he placed a pendant in my hand. "You're Volturi now. For anyone that ever sees this pendant will know; you are protected." I nodded my thanks and he bolted across the field after a hasty goodbye.

It seemed far easier than I planned it would be. Who knew that removing Chelsea's ability to use her gift would make the Volturi completely mutinous? I can't say I saw it coming. I don't think even Alice did. Closing up the crevasse in the field, I flew back to my family. Edward ran to me and pulled me into his arms, squeezing me in a bone-crushing embrace. The rest of the family gathered around us and we shared a group hug. Even Jacob joined in.

"You had me scared to death," Edward whispered.

"Not possible," I whispered back. He chuckled into my hair and held me ever tighter. I think he finally got a grasp that he couldn't break me; he was holding me tighter than he ever had before. I loved it. "So? Piece of cake." That earned laughs and guffaws from everyone.

"Leave it to Trixie to upturn the Volturi and have it better than ever in a matter of minutes," Emmett commented. Demetri stepped from the trees then, sidling right up to me and putting his arm around me.

"I'll be taking my prize now," he declared, attempting to pull me away. I was stronger though. I grabbed his arm and wrenched it at an odd angle, tearing it from his body. All of surrounded him hissing. Reya's hand was already on fire, ready to turn him to ash. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I was joking!" he yelled. "Too soon?"

"You think?" I hissed, throwing his arm at him. He caught it, licked the edges and reattached it to his body. Gross. "Jackass."

"I'm sorry. I… I guess I never had much of a chance to joke around in Volterra. Clearly I have some learning to do."

"Clearly," Edward muttered. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I've always been adventurous," he replied. "I didn't have much chance to be so with the Volturi; so I figured before I return to Volterra, I'd see the world a bit. Might even try out this animal thing you all seem to love so much." Oh great. Another house guest. Though this one, I knew, Edward wouldn't be too keen on allowing to stay.

Tanya however, had other ideas. She strode up to him, took his hand and pulled him away from the group, bounding through the forest. I didn't think they were mates, but he did say he was adventurous. I suddenly had a mental picture of him mounting her over a lion carcass. Eww. At least that was another problem taken care of. Tanya and I were on okay terms, but we were by no means friends. Alice had mentioned that she just needed to get laid, so perhaps this would be the turning point in my would-be friendship with the blonde.

Edward then yanked me out of the group and we began running towards our little cabin getaway in the mountains. "Need to rediscover me again, Edward?" I asked.

"Actually, I was reading Demetri's mind. He had some ideas of new positions that I'd like to try," he mentioned. That stopped me dead in my tracks, my jaw on the ground. "I'm not stuck in my Victorian morals anymore, my love," he added. "I had to insert myself into his place in his fantasies, of course; but I must say he has a vivid imagination. I was jealous at first, but then I reminded myself that you're mine and I'm yours. No matter how many other people will flirt with you or hit on you throughout our forever, you'll always come home to me, right?"

"Always and forever," I agreed. He scooped me up into his arms bridal style and ran with me the rest of the way to our cabin. Once inside, he set me down and quickly set to making a fire in the hearth.

"Would you do the honors?" he asked, gesturing towards the logs. I quickly set them ablaze and curled up with him on the floor. We spent a few hours simply staring into each other's eyes; it was more intimate than any sex or love-making we'd ever done. "What you did today was both incredibly brave, and incredibly stupid."

"I know, but I didn't have a choice in the matter. I'd rather have destroyed them all than have anyone in my family harmed in any way. When Jane turned her power on you, it took all of my focus not to send fireballs at the lot of them. I just barely had enough strength of mind to resist and only return Jane's power back to her."

Edward squeezed me tight. "I kept going back and forth from being incredibly proud of you and impressed to incredibly angry at you for putting yourself in danger. I know you can't be harmed; I get that, but it doesn't quell my worry. I know that they could have hurt you by hurting me, or anyone in our family. Which is exactly what Jane resorted to when she saw her gift was still ineffective on you. I didn't doubt your ability to handle them, turn them all to ash if necessary, but I knew that if you lost your focus, one of them could have slipped by and gotten to me, or Alice, or Esme, or anyone. You would have been devastated if one of us was hurt and you know it."

"You're right," I agreed. "I may have acted a bit rashly and without forethought, but I truly had the situation under control. I had no intention of turning Aro to ash; I just needed him out of the equation for a short while. As soon as I took care of Chelsea, all hell broke loose. I'm sorry I worried you, my love." I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. We lost ourselves in each other, not bothering to come up for air or even food for me. I had much more important things to concentrate on, like showing my mate just how much I love him.

* * *

A/N: up next will be a bit of an exploration into how the different regime of the Volturi will affect the Vampire world. In my Fic, Caius will have hated the Romanians most of all... and we may see a re-appearance of the Children of the Moon. Haven't fully decided yet. Not that I ever get much choice. The words just flow from my fingers and go in their own direction most of the time, ;)

Sidebar… for those of you that have seen Lucy (The new Scarlet Johannson – Morgan Freeman film), were you as dissatisfied and disappointed in that film as I was? I had such high hopes for it and it fell so far below the mark it made me sad. All the moments where the audience is suppose to experience some emotion just gave me a "meh" feeling. I won't spoil it for those who have yet to see it, so if you want to discuss how you liked or didn't like it, feel free to shoot me a private message.

I've written my characters (Bellatrix, Reya, and Lukas) to have more control over their brains than the average human, and I felt that even though I'm just an amateur writer, I have a better grasp on the concept than the Hollywood filmmakers do. Granted their science fiction that led to the Lucy character having more control over her brain is a bit different than my own, but… I dunno, I just felt like they could have done so much more with what they had. Should have hired me as a script writer ;)


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